We’ve all seen the effects of automation in our industry. From vehicle production to automated records and human resource recruiting, driverless cars and even automated vacuums. Automation has made a great deal of endeavours much more efficient and cost-effective.
But it has come with a different kind of cost.
According to the Pew Research Center, 72% of American’s are “somewhat worried” that computers will take over their job in the future. Also, in a survey to discover if Americans thought that businesses should replace employees with machines that can do jobs more quickly and at a higher quality, 41% said businesses should while 58% (1% did not answer) said that there should be a limit on how many jobs businesses can replace.
In that same survey, Americans shared which professions they thought were most likely to be replaced by automated processes. From most likely to least likely; Fast Food Workers, Insurance Claims Processor, Software Engineer, and Legal Clerk. All of the jobs beyond that were less than 50% chance.
In a telling story concerning whether Americans had lost a job or had their hours reduced due to automation, 18-24 year-olds were affected more than anyone.
So what does this look like for the short-term future? One research firm name Forrester has released predictions of the real impact of automation for 2020.
The firm is predicting that over 1 million knowledge-based jobs will be replaced in 2020, while America will net about 330 thousand jobs that are touch and empathy based (like nursing.)
Dangers of automation may slow its growth throughout the next decade, though. The recent Boeing 737 crash was due to the pilots being unable to take over the automated system when it crashed. Referencing that crash, Forrester said:
“This is why every automated system must be designed with humans at the center,” – Forrester
It seems that as automation reduces some jobs, it will also increase many jobs due to the nature of needing hardware and software development in relation to the processes itself.
References
Americans and Automation in Everyday Life. (2019, January 11). Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2017/10/04/automation-in-everyday-life/
How Americans see automation and the workplace in 7 charts. (2019, April 8). Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/08/how-americans-see-automation-and-the-workplace-in-7-charts/
Predictions 2020. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://go.forrester.com/predictions-2020/?utm_source=forbes&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=predictions_2020
Press, G. (2019, October 31). 2020 Predictions About Automation And The Future Of Work From Forrester. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2019/10/30/2020-predictions-about-automation-and-the-future-of-work-from-forrester/#1feab71318a6