In late 2013, two Oxford academics released a paper claiming that forty seven percent of current American jobs are at high risk of being automated within the next twenty years. As reported by the New York Times, the study analyzed more than 700 occupations using data from the Labor Department. The researchers assigned a probability of automation to each occupation according to nine variables.
The research makes clear that the threat of automation has gone well beyond the story of robots replacing factory and warehouse employees. Increasingly, software is doing the work of many, including highly educated people in financial services. Naturally, job prospects vary by industry.
In healthcare, where human interaction is critical, automation threatens fewer jobs than it does in the balance of the labor market. Taxi and truck drivers, however, face a bleaker outlook given recent advances in self-driving cars. Other threatened occupational categories include attorneys given the existence of software that can analyze & sort legal documents.
Journalists also face growing competition from automation. What the Oxford report does not discuss are the new jobs that will be created through ongoing technological progress.
