Nearly Half of US Jobs Could Be Automated in the Next 20 Years

We know. They're coming. And nothing can stop them. Them being the computers and robots that are going to render half of us redundant. Within what remains of our working lives, while we still have mortgages and car loans and college tuitions and bar bills to pay.

There will apparently two waves of this computerization/automation process, both of which we are seeing some evidence of already. The first affects the clerical or production or logistics-based jobs which dont require much training.

The second wave of computerization/automation affects management and some services jobs.

Automation has been a fact of life in manufacturing for a generation but its scale and pace are increasing. And we are already seeing the hollowing out of middle management - and the middle class lifestyle that went with it. We are also familiar with the offshoring of various tasks - sometimes entire professions. But with the rise of wages in China and other former export platforms, even those jobs are now ripe for computerization. And 45 percent is a big number. Given the anemic rate at which new jobs are being created on top of businesses' reluctance to replace or add to anything other than executive compensation, there is little chance that the global economy, as currently constituted, seems likely to make up the difference as well as account for the millions of new jobs seekers entering the market annually.

So, crawl under the bed and wait for someone to ride to the rescue? Or maybe do something about it? For the expensively educated and technologically adept, there are entrepreneurial opportunities to be had, as the following article explains. But that leaves a lot of people without much chance or much hope.

It seems clear that investment in training and education to make the rest of the population more productive and self-sustaining is the logical answer. And it could probably be done without cutting significantly into the margins on which senior executive bonuses are based. But it will require suspension of the ideological fever dream which suggests that people who are un or underemployed are deserving of their fate and that the pain they suffer teaches them a good lesson. Without wasting anyone's time attempting to solicit empathy or human kindness, at the level of self-interest it is worth noting that those people happen to be consumers and without their participation in the economy, the incomes of those who demean them may soon be threatened. JL

Joe McKendrick reports in Smart Planet:

A study out of Oxford University has grim news for U.S. workers: up to 45% of all jobs will be automated within the next 20 years. But there is little mention of what needs to be done to provide more opportunity.

In a working paper co-authored by Dr. Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, both of Oxford, 702 occupations were reviewed to determine their susceptibility to automation. There isn’t much information available on the study itself, but in an overview in MIT Technology Review, the authors suggest that it will be mainly jobs that don’t require high levels of “creative and social skills.”
The automation of half the nation’s jobs will occur in two phases, the study says: The first wave will affect (and is affecting) jobs in transportation/logistics, production labor, administrative support, services, sales, and construction. The second wave — propelled by artificial intelligence — will affect jobs in management, science, engineering, and the arts.
Just as interesting as the study is the response provided by Gary Reber, founder and executive director of For Economic Justice, who argues that owners of the means of production will actually thrive as such a shift takes place. Those who rely on 9-to-5 standard employment arrangements for subsistence are likely to  suffer the most in the automation wave. As Reber put it: ‘Full employment is not an objective of businesses. Companies strive to keep labor input and other costs at a minimum.”
Those who are entrepreneurially minded, and apply creative solutions using automation and technology, are likely to continue to thrive as economic activity becomes increasingly digitized.
Such opportunities aren’t limited to putting up one’s life savings to launch startups, either. With social media and an abundance of cheap cloud-based resources, there are opportunities for current employees as well as freelancers to forge alliances and fill in gaps that traditional corporations cannot fill. For example, there is demand for contract information brokers, data analysts, financial analysts, and app designers and developers. The pages of SmartPlanet are filled with examples of businesses being launched to bring fresh insights via product design, energy reuse, smartphone repair, floating business incubators, new media, forensic portraiture, and sustainable farming. And these examples are just from the last two or three weeks.
Yes, it’s clear that many jobs are being automated, and there will be pain from displacement. But it’s time to amp up the discussion on how people can better realize the opportunities that are being created.