North Korea PRK
Tier 6 · Low-Income / High-Informality
North Korea stands at 27.8 of 100 on the Optional Work Index, the point at which paid work becomes economically optional1.
Supply measures whether machines can do the work; demand measures whether people can afford to stop. The index is their geometric mean, computed by the same method used for every country.
27.8 / 100
0 · pre-automation baseline100 · work optional
42.7
Supply
can machines do the work
18.1
Demand
can people afford to stop
Data coverage high · 4/5 inputs from primary data (supply 3/3, demand 1/2)
Components
Five sub-indices, fixed weights within each side
Supply
Capacity for machines to do the work42.7
AI Capabilityweight 40%
29.1
Humanoid Roboticsweight 31%
92.9
Labor Market Shiftweight 29%
7.7
AI system progress toward human-level and beyond cognitive performance.
Demand
Capacity for people to stop working18.1
Economic Abundanceweight 60%
24.9
Wealth Distributionweight 40%
modelled — no primary PRK data
7.8
Whether the cost of necessities (healthcare, housing, food, transport, education) is falling enough that work is less required.
Data sources for PRK
which series filled each input
ai_frontier— epoch globalai_adoption— wb wbrobot_density— none missingautomation_gap— derived wbunemployment— wb wbproductivity— none missingjob_openings— wb proxycost_healthcare— none missingcost_food— none missingcost_housing— none missingcost_transport— none missingcost_education— none missingbs_electricity— wb wbbs_water— wb wbbs_sanitation— wb wbbs_ict_affordability— none missingincome_floor— none missinginequality— none missinglabor_income_share— none missing
Calculated 2026-07-17 19:20:21 UTC · version 3.1.0