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Only 25 Percent of Occupations In US Are At 'High Risk' For Losing Jobs From Automation, Study Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: Automation is coming, but not for everyone. Researchers at the Brookings Institution estimate just 25% of occupations in the US -- in production, food service, and transportation -- are at "high risk" for losing jobs from the advance of automation. "Automation is not the end of work," said Mark Muro, policy director for the Brookings Institution's program on urban economies and co-author of a study published Jan. 24. Most occupations will see specific tasks assumed by machines, but much of their labor will likely be enhanced, rather than fully replaced, through automation, the study found. That's because automation rarely replaces entire jobs, but instead handles specific tasks in occupations that often require hundreds of them.
To forecast the effects, Brookings researchers looked at thousands of specific tasks within each occupation, and the degree to which automation could handle them, coming up with a risk rating for each occupation. The workers most vulnerable are in transportation, production, food preparation, and office administration, which, combined, make up about 36 million jobs, or 25% of the total jobs in the US today. In these occupations, roughly 70% of tasks were considered routine and predictable, prime targets to be managed by machines. The most vulnerable were "packaging and filling machine operators" (100% exposure to automation), food preparation workers (91%), payroll and timekeeping clerks (87%), and light-truck and delivery drivers (78%).
To forecast the effects, Brookings researchers looked at thousands of specific tasks within each occupation, and the degree to which automation could handle them, coming up with a risk rating for each occupation. The workers most vulnerable are in transportation, production, food preparation, and office administration, which, combined, make up about 36 million jobs, or 25% of the total jobs in the US today. In these occupations, roughly 70% of tasks were considered routine and predictable, prime targets to be managed by machines. The most vulnerable were "packaging and filling machine operators" (100% exposure to automation), food preparation workers (91%), payroll and timekeeping clerks (87%), and light-truck and delivery drivers (78%).
It's 25% of occupations, not 25% of jobs.
We could limit legal immigration, stop illegal immigration..
Can you explain why you're worried about immigrants taking your jobs, but fine with robots taking them?
What's your position on immigrant robots?
Increased wages over time? When you have pressure from automation reducing the demand for labor and procreation increasing the supply of labor, it is hard to see how supply and demand would increase the value of labor.
Automation frees up limited resources to improve profits for an increasingly smaller number. The value of automation is seen by the wealthy more so than the poor. For the poor it is an added expense, an additional pressure towards a minimum level of capacity to be competitive and remain employed. Because there is a sufficient supply of optimal labor, inefficient sub-optimal labor is unnecessary. Inefficient sub-optimal labor has a lower return on investment, if it has one at all, and thus has no economic incentive to fund the life towards automation and optimization.
How much does it cost to automate your home? To replace appliances and devices with more energy efficient alternatives? To install double-paned or other more moder window types? To replace a vehicle with an energy efficient alternative, or one with greater capacity and accident mitigation technology to reduce the risk of damage. Can one afford to live within a city on the income provided by said city?
We are raising the cost of entry while simultaneously lowering the return on investment.
An Alaskan said it best when he said that he feels sorry for those of us on the mainland, because Alaskans can live off the land.