Issue: № 5, 2026
Doi: https://doi.org/10.37634/efp.2026.5.15e
The accelerating pace of technological change poses fundamental challenges to labour markets across all sectors of the economy. The IT industry has moved beyond its traditional role as a self-contained sector and has become a structural force reshaping the broader economy. Artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation are penetrating every industry simultaneously, fundamentally altering the economic logic of production, employment, and service delivery. Thousands of workers are currently being forced to change their careers due to technological shifts they did not anticipate, and existing analytical frameworks rarely account for the regulatory dimension of this process. This paper pursues two interconnected objectives. First, it analyses IT market dynamics at both global and national levels, drawing on data from the National Bank of Ukraine, the OECD, Gartner, and the World Bank. Second, it proposes the Regulatory Automation Barrier Index (RABI) as an original composite metric for measuring the degree to which a profession's institutional and regulatory framework shields workers from technological displacement. The index comprises three equally weighted dimensions: Licensing Stringency (LS), which captures formal entry requirements; Legal Exclusivity (LE), which reflects the extent to which legislation prohibits non-human agents from performing core professional functions; and Regulatory Update Frequency (RUF), scored inversely to reflect institutional adaptability. The composite index is calculated as RABI = (LS + LE + RUF) / 3. Empirical results show that global IT spending reached $5.26 trillion in 2024 and is forecast to reach $6.15 trillion in 2026, with annual growth of 10.8%. Investment in generative AI grew from $4 billion in 2022 to $25.2 billion in 2023. Ukraine's IT sector accounts for 4.9% of GDP, with a documented structural shift from outsourcing toward product-based development between 2021 and 2023. RABI scores for selected occupations range from 0.10 for warehouse operators to 0.85 for notaries. The framework reveals that sustainable workforce planning requires an interdisciplinary lens integrating economic analysis, legal regulation, and technology foresight.
Keywords : automation, sustainable employment, labour market, regulatory barriers, digital transformation, artificial intelligence, RABI, workforce planning
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