- Malta Tops Global AI Job-Risk Ranking as Service-Heavy Economies Face Deepest Exposure
Malta has emerged as the country most exposed to job displacement from artificial intelligence, according to a new study that ranks national workforces by how much of their employment sits in sectors vulnerable to automation.
The April 2026 report, produced by construction scheduling platform Planera, found that 46.56 per cent of Malta’s workforce is employed in jobs that AI could replace, the highest exposure rate in the world. That translates to about 155,000 workers at risk out of a total workforce of 332,800.
The findings come as concerns over AI-led labour disruption intensify globally, particularly after companies such as Amazon moved to cut thousands of international roles while shifting more tasks to automation.
Planera’s research assessed employment across economic sectors and matched official labour data with automation-risk probabilities for industries, including hospitality, finance, retail, and professional services. Countries were then ranked by the share of their workforce employed in jobs that machines are increasingly capable of handling.
After Malta, Canada ranked second with an AI exposure index of 44.87 per cent, followed closely by Greece at 44.84 per cent and Cyprus at 44.77 per cent. Luxembourg completed the top five at 43.82 per cent.
Although Malta posted the highest relative risk, the United States stood out in absolute terms. With a workforce of 158.3 million, the study estimated that 69.1 million American workers are in jobs exposed to AI replacement, making it the largest at-risk labour pool among the countries assessed.
The broader pattern in the rankings points to a common structural vulnerability: service-heavy economies appear more exposed than many industrial ones. Countries such as Greece and Spain, where tourism, hospitality, and retail play major economic roles, featured prominently because these sectors contain large volumes of repetitive, process-driven work that AI can increasingly replicate.
Spain ranked eighth globally, with 43.35 per cent of its workforce exposed, equivalent to just over 10 million workers. Italy followed in tenth place, with 42.22 per cent exposure and more than 12.1 million workers at risk.
Among smaller economies, Cyprus and Luxembourg appeared particularly vulnerable because of their concentration in professional services and tourism-linked activity. In Cyprus, authorities identified about 227,600 workers as being at risk, while in Luxembourg the figure stood at 236,200.
The Netherlands, Belgium and Italy also made the top 10, underscoring that the automation challenge is not confined to small island economies or financially distressed states but extends across advanced European labour markets.
An automation expert cited in the report said the results challenge a common assumption about who faces the greatest danger from AI. “People think factory workers face the biggest automation threat, but the data shows service jobs are more at risk,” the expert said.
The explanation, the report argues, lies in the history of industrial automation. “Manufacturing was already automated decades ago, so the workers left are doing tasks robots can’t handle yet,” the expert said. “But admin assistants, retail clerks, and hospitality staff are all doing repetitive work that AI can learn quickly.”
That distinction is important because service-sector jobs account for a much larger share of employment in many developed economies. “These jobs make up huge portions of employment in developed countries, which is why places like Malta and Greece show such high exposure rates,” the expert added.
For Malta, the warning is especially sharp. The report argues that the country’s dependence on administrative work, hospitality and professional services leaves it unusually vulnerable, while its small size makes it harder for displaced workers to migrate into safer sectors at scale.
Canada’s position near the top of the ranking reflects a different dynamic: a much larger labour force spread across sectors where automation risks are high, including technology and food service. Greece, meanwhile, combines a high-risk employment mix with more limited retraining capacity, increasing the social and economic stakes of AI disruption.
The study does not suggest that all at-risk jobs will disappear immediately. But it does reinforce a growing concern among policymakers and employers: that the next phase of AI disruption may be felt less on factory floors than in offices, shops, hotels, and back-office service functions.
In that sense, the report is less a prediction of an instant labour-market collapse than a warning about where pressure is likely to build first. For countries with workforces concentrated in repetitive service roles, the challenge may no longer be whether AI changes the labour market but how quickly governments and businesses can adapt before that change becomes dislocation.
