Methodological note · 30 April 2026

FUNCAS and this dataset agree at the macro level. The 4-digit decomposition tells a richer story.

On 30 April 2026, FUNCAS published a working paper authored by Prof. Francisco Rodríguez-Fernández (UGR / FUNCAS) estimating the destruction of up to 2.3 million jobs by AI in Spain over the next ten years. This page explains how that work relates to the «AI and Employment in Spain» dataset (502 occupations, 22.73 million workers), deposited on Zenodo in March 2026.

r = 0.936
Pearson · macro convergence
across 9 broad CNO-11 groups
502 / 9
Occupational granularity
v15 at 4 digits vs FUNCAS at 1 digit
1.04 M
Workers ≥7 in Clerical
support · a single occupation: 445,000
Press coverage: El Mundo, 29 Apr 2026 ↗ · Referenced study: FUNCAS DT-2026/04 ↗ · Methodology v30 ↗
The context

Two different questions, two useful answers.

The FUNCAS study adapts the AI Occupational Exposure index by Felten et al. (2023) to the Spanish National Classification of Occupations via a double SOC→ISCO→CNO crosswalk, and applies a parametric destruction-and-complementarity model calibrated on Eloundou (2024), Acemoglu (2024) and the INE-ETICCE Q1 2025 survey. The output is absolute figures of expected job destruction over a ten-year horizon, aggregated to the 9 broad CNO-11 groups.

The «AI and Employment in Spain» dataset (v15) scores 502 occupations at 4 digits with a theoretical vulnerability value between 0 and 10, adversarially validated across seven generative-AI models, and reallocates employment and salary to the 4-digit level via an LFS-Census-SEPE-WSS cascade. The output is a 4-digit occupational layer with vulnerable wage bill, with no assumed time horizon or adoption speed.

Both questions are legitimate, both answers are useful, and together they offer a fuller picture than either on its own. This page documents where they converge, where they complement each other, and how to read them together.

«Since disaggregation below the nine broad CNO-11 groups is not available with sufficient precision in INE press releases, the figures of employed persons per group have been obtained from the quarterly publication of the LFS itself.» Rodríguez-Fernández, FUNCAS DT-2026/04, §3.1
Methodological framework

What exactly each model measures.

The comparison operates at the level of the 9 broad CNO-11 groups (1 digit), where both methodologies produce directly comparable values. Differences in granularity, time frame and output are intentional: each model answers a different question.

FUNCAS DT-2026/04 Rodríguez-Fernández, April 2026
Dataset v15 Anlak Studio, March 2026
Question answered
How many jobs would we expect to destroy or complement over ten years under modelled adoption?
What is the theoretical ceiling vulnerability of each occupation under full AI adoption?
Time frame
Ten years (2025–2035) under calibrated adoption scenarios.
No explicit horizon. Score represents the ceiling, not realisation.
Granularity
9 broad groups CNO-11 (1 digit).
502 occupations CNO-11 (4 digits).
Score construction
AIOE (Felten et al. 2023) translated to CNO-11 via SOC→ISCO→CNO with a φ = 0.82 corrector. Parametric destruction-and-complementarity model.
Per-occupation score 0–10 decomposed into 4 sub-components. Adversarial validation across 7 generative-AI models (inter-model r = 0.953).
Main inputs
Eloundou et al. (2024), Acemoglu (2024), INE-ETICCE Q1 2025, LFS Q4 2025 at 1 digit.
LFS Q4 2025, Census 2021, SEPE contracts 2024, WSS 2023 + INSEE/INE-PT proxies, EU AI Act Annex III.
Output
Gross destruction estimated by broad group: 1.7M–2.3M jobs over 10 years (central scenario ≈ 2.0M).
Score 0–10 per occupation + vulnerable wage bill. 12.1% of the workforce with score ≥7.
On employment alignment: the total workforce in v15 (22.73M) differs from the direct LFS aggregate used by FUNCAS (22.46M) by roughly +1.2%. The difference arises from the cascade of reallocation to the 4-digit level (LFS→Census→SEPE), which introduces residual adjustments in the internal proportionality of each group. Both methodologies are defensible for their respective purposes. Technical detail in Appendix B of the methodological addendum.
Where they converge

The macro ranking matches with remarkable precision.

When the v15 dataset is aggregated to the 1-digit CNO-11 level and compared with the AIOE-CNO values published by FUNCAS, the two methodologies rank the broad groups in essentially equivalent ways.

The convergence is informative precisely because the two calculation paths share no dependencies: AIOE is built on the O*NET matrix and the AAAI index; v15 is built via per-occupation scoring with adversarial multi-model validation, without reference to AIOE. Two independent models converging at the macro level is a weak but real form of mutual validation.

0.936

Pearson coefficient · Spearman ρ = 0.830

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0 2 4 6 FUNCAS AIOE-CNO (0–1) v15 weighted vulnerability (0–10) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Each point represents one of the broad CNO-11 groups. Labels: 0 Armed Forces · 1 Managers · 2 Scientific technicians · 3 Support technicians · 4 Clerical support · 5 Services · 6 Agriculture · 7 Manufacturing · 8 Plant operators · 9 Elementary. The line is a least-squares linear regression. Raw data available in CSV format.

Where they complement each other

The 4-digit layer reveals intra-group heterogeneity.

FUNCAS assigns expected destruction to groups 1, 2, 3 and 4. The 4-digit decomposition in the v15 dataset shows how vulnerability ≥7 is distributed within each of those groups. The findings most relevant to the public conversation are the following.

Finding 1 · extreme concentration
Group 4 — Clerical support
FUNCAS: AIOE 0.60 · −417,000 expected destructions (≈19.9% of the group)

Group 4 produces the most informative result of the decomposition. Out of 2,132,500 workers in the v15 dataset, 1,039,883 people — 48.8% of the group — score vulnerability ≥7, spread across just 9 specific occupations. The concentration is not uniform: a single occupation absorbs nearly half of all the group's vulnerable mass.

Distribution of the 1.04M workers ≥7 in group 4
CNO 4309 · 444,905
other 8 occupations · 594,978
CNO 4309 · 42.8%
Other 8 occupations · 57.2%
CNO 4309 — Back-office clerical support workers (no direct customer contact) is the occupation with the largest vulnerable mass in the entire Spanish economy according to the v15 dataset: 444,905 people, score 8/10, average annual salary of €25,896. A single CNO-11 line contains nearly half a million exposed workers.
Finding 2 · informative divergence
Group 1 — Managers and directors
FUNCAS: AIOE 0.52 · −150,000 expected destructions

Here the two models diverge, and the divergence is the interesting reading. FUNCAS assigns destruction to the group by applying a flat AIOE of 0.52 across the 870,000 employed. The v15 dataset covers 33 managerial occupations at 4 digits, and none reaches the vulnerability ≥7 threshold. The managerial occupations with the highest scores (commercial, financial, HR, R&D directors) score between 5.5 and 6.5.

FUNCAS
−150,000
expected destructions over 10 years · flat AIOE across the entire group
v15
0 / 33
managerial occupations with score ≥7 · scores between 5.5 and 6.5 in the most exposed roles

The coherent interpretation: Felten's AIOE captures task exposure to generative-AI capabilities, and a manager's tasks — strategic analysis, drafting reports, executive communication — are highly automatable. The v15 model distinguishes between technical task exposure and net occupational vulnerability, which includes non-delegable tasks of judgement, legal-corporate accountability, and interpersonal interaction. AI will act in this group as augmentation, not substitution. That reading is consistent with both models when they are read together.

How to read both models together

Macro framework and occupational layer are complementary, not redundant.

The figure of 2.3 million jobs destroyed over ten years headlining the FUNCAS coverage and the figure of 2.75 million workers with vulnerability ≥7 produced by the v15 dataset are different metrics that sit at comparable orders of magnitude. The first is expected destruction under explicit time scenarios; the second is a theoretical exposure ceiling with no assumption about adoption speed.

The most useful reading for the public debate is probably the conjunction of both: in the short term, pay attention to the adoption pace that materialises the FUNCAS estimates; in the medium term, pay attention to the specific occupational composition of the vulnerable mass that the v15 dataset documents at 4 digits. One metric answers «how much» over a concrete horizon; the other answers «where» at the granularity of a public-policy decision or a reskilling programme.

The full methodological note with the raw cross-validation data, the reproducible script and the technical appendices is deposited on Zenodo under the same series as the original dataset. Any researcher, journalist or institution can recompute the results from the v15 JSON in a single execution.

References and materials

Comparator study Artificial intelligence and the Spanish labour market
Rodríguez-Fernández, F. (2026). FUNCAS DT-2026/04, April 2026.
Press coverage The first major report on AI and employment in Spain
El Mundo, 29 April 2026.
Methodological addendum Cross-validation v15 ↔ FUNCAS DT-2026/04
De Nicolás, Á. (2026). Supplementary methodological note. PDF + Markdown + CSV + reproducible script. CC BY 4.0.
Main methodology AI and Employment in Spain, methodology v30
De Nicolás, Á. (2026). Dataset v15, 502 occupations. Zenodo, March 2026. CC BY 4.0.
AIOE theoretical framework Occupational Heterogeneity in Exposure to Generative AI
Felten, E., Raj, M., Seamans, R. (2023). SSRN Working Paper 4414065.
Macro framework The Simple Macroeconomics of AI
Acemoglu, D. (2024). NBER Working Paper 32487. Economic Policy 40(121).