Jobs Lost To Robots And Automation – Automation seems to be advancing faster than ever with robotics, computer science, and artificial intelligence.
Many white collar positions, such as accountants, receptionists and even attorneys find their jobs threatened by the ‘Robot Revolution’.
What Is The Robot Revolution?
You probably didn’t think “Robot Revolution” when McDonald’s instituted their kiosk ordering system, or when Amazon’s drone delivered your mail.
Instead, we thought “how convenient.”
Today, we read about tens of thousands of driverless automobiles descending on the Interstate near your house.
What do the above advancements in technology have in common?
They are all Robot Revolution, and MSN Money says it may result in the elimination of 55% of metropolitan jobs in the United States.
So, what is the Robot Revolution? Where will the impact be felt the most? Will it cost me my job?
HostingRadar looked for answers and this is what we discovered.
Job Loss To Robots And Automation
There are some hard facts we have known for some time now. Economists predict wide-ranging job losses in the coming decades.
Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is making advancements by super-strides. Yesterday, the machinist at the Flint, Michigan Chrysler plant felt the impact.
Today, it hears you order a double burger, prepares it and adds a Frosty.
Tomorrow it drives a semi from Chicago to Denver.
That’s the working stiff unemployed. He was replaced by a robotic arm.
Where will these job losses happen? Which parts of the country will be hit the hardest?
The Northeastern Rust Belt? That’s what we thought at first. It made sense.
This stretch, roughly Buffalo to Milwaukee, was the center of American heavy industry.
Steel mills sent their fire into Pittsburgh’s night sky.
Detroit automakers built Ford trucks. Lately, this region is mostly a campaign speech for politicians who “didn’t forget about you,” and “will bring jobs back.” The other guy “shipped the jobs to China.”
Outsourcing of American jobs to foreign nations is a problem, but it isn’t the biggest problem.
Encroaching job loss to automated systems is worse news for employees.
But, we are learning it may be even more portentous for places a long way from Cleveland and Akron.
The latest expert analysis suggests places hardest-hit by upcoming automation advances are elsewhere.
Areas with high concentrations of employment in food prep, and business office/administrative support will absorb the brunt of the Robot Revolution.
This means jobs in Las Vegas and Riverside, Calif are in jeopardy!
They are subject to automation at a clip of 63% and 65% respectively.
Other places with a profile of employment indicating high job erosion due to automation are Louisville, Kentucky, Orlando, Florida, and El Paso, Texas.
Wait a minute!
Is this just a matter of chasing money by dumping cost at the expense of middle management and skilled labor? In part, certainly.
Fail to give the shareholders back rubs to your peril, Boss Man.
However, the Robot Revolution is more of a threat to low-wage earners than to higher-earners. In its infancy, automation hurt the middle-class such as manufacturing professionals.
Now, it’s after low-income jobs. When low-wage jobs disappear, there will be a new subset out of work.
They’re lightly-educated. They weren’t earning very much money. Now they are making zip nada.
“Okay, this is good info for someone entering the job market. But, is there a silver lining? Where can I find a job to turn into a career?”
Those are good questions. It is always the best plan to find positives that you can exploit, rather than negatives to avoid.
Some industries will be, if not completely immune to the Revolution, less impacted.
Including higher-tech jobs in Silicon Valley, and the Research Triangle in North Carolina. (Think Raleigh, Chapel Hill, and Durham).
The Boston-Cambridge area should be good, too.
Many jobs in those places require creative social intelligence. That makes them hard to automate.
Of course, places like Cambridge and Silicon Valley are already prosperous today, at least relative to most places in the United States.
That suggests America’s regional economic inequality will continue to become more pronounced.
The University of California at Berkeley economist, Enrico Moretti said in his book, “The New Geography of Jobs.”
High-tech job centers like Silicon Valley are drawing in educated and talented people, and thus pulling them away from the rest of the country.
This has implications not only for employment, but also for socioeconomic outcomes such as health, family stability, and crime.
To put it another way, not everyone wants to (or can) pack up and move to San Jose.
Does this mean 3,000 miles between California and North Carolina are fated to exist in a Dystopian wasteland?
What Could Happen If Most Jobs Are Lost To Robots In The Future?
If automation kills millions of jobs, it will lead to wage stagnation, and a rebirth of Communism within a generation, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England predicted.
Carney fears that big data, artificial intelligence, and better machinery will make income inequality far worse.
The disruption created by the current wave of technological change will be as great and as destructive as that ushered in by the Industrial Revolution, Carney said at the Canada Growth Summit.
Weak salary growth proves that the world is facing a crisis of income inequality as great as that in the 19th Century, Carney speculated.
“There is a disconnect in expectations,” Carney warned. “In surveys, over 90% of citizens don’t think their jobs will be affected by automation; but a similar percentage of CEOs think the opposite, in the number of jobs which will be materially affected.”
Carney’s belief is that mass unemployment and labor and political unrest as great as that of the 1930s is just around the corner. He pointed to the use of artificial intelligence in banks and law firms as a precursor to a mass die-off of jobs. He also thinks that Marxism is about to undergo a revival.
“If you substitute platforms for textile mills, machine learning for steam engines,” Carney noted. “Twitter for the telegraph, you have exactly the same dynamics as existed 150 years ago – when Karl Marx was scribbling The Communist Manifesto.”
Carney might be onto something here since it is not unemployed working stiffs that ferment revolutions.
It is unemployed or underemployed intellectuals and disgruntled clerks; not factory workers, that lead the revolutions.
Examples of such troublemakers include; Thomas Paine, Robespierre, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Castro, Trotsky, and Mussolini, they were all middle-class intellectuals – not workers.
What To The Leaders Of Tech Think About Automation’s Impact On Job Loss?
Some very intelligent people who know are very familiar with technology are scared to death of technological unemployment.
Some of the most disturbing statements have been made by Elon Musk.
Even though not all jobs can be performed by computers or robots, there is a clear need to address millions of people losing their jobs quickly
Musk told the Merkle. The Tesla and SpaceX billionaire, a Silicon Valley insider, believes millions of jobs are about to vanish.
He thinks a basic income will be necessary to prevent social collapse.
Since Musk was right about electric cars, PayPal, and the ability to build reusable rockets there is a good possibility he is right about technological unemployment.
Musk actually understands technology and its limitations.
Sir Richard Branson has expressed similar thoughts.
Unlike Musk, most tech industry leaders refuse to address the issue of technological unemployment directly but they refuse to refute his contentions.
It may seem that the people most familiar with technology believe that mass unemployment is inevitable.
10 Jobs That Won’t Be Lost to Robots
No matter what the economic climate, it is always worth starting your own business.
Being in control of your own income is a power one just doesn’t get as an employee.
Be it a tech startup of your own (here is a list of startup ideas), or a skilled trade you can offer as a service, being your own boss has its advantages.
To start your own business, read our guide to creating a professional website for yourself, and download your free copy of the Business StartUp Guide below.
Now, considering jobs you can do either as your own boss or working for someone else, these 10 jobs won’t be lost to robots.
At least in the foreseeable future.
Hairstylist/Barber
As far as I know, there is no machine out there that can really cut hair.
Yes there are machines that can take it off but none that can style it.
Hairstylists and barbers will be able to make a living far into the future and earn good tips because human vanity hasn’t changed.
This also is one of the few fields left where small business people can prosper.
Bartender
Yes it is possible for machines to mix drinks. It isn’t possible for machines to chat with the people on the stools, watch over clientele from being over-served, or throw out bad drunks.
Bartenders will survive because people want the human touch when they order a martini or a tall cold one.
It might be poured out or mixed by a machine under the bar though.
Waiter/Waitress
This is another field in which the human touch is indispensable.
Even if the kitchen of the future gets highly automated, aspiring actors and college students will still make a decent living serving food.
Chef/Cook
Efforts to create machines that prepare food haven’t been very successful. Even if they were, people still also like the human touch in the kitchen.
In the future cooks and chefs, particularly those willing to prepare the food in front of the customers, will make a good living.
Gardener
This is another job that cannot really be automated. Some aspects of the position, such as lawn mowing, can be automated, but there are no machines that can pull weeds.
Nor are they likely to appear anytime in the foreseeable future.
Teacher
All human knowledge might be placed on a chip in the future, but kids will still need to learn how to read and write.
Actually, it will be more important than ever; illiterate people cannot use computers.
Good teachers will still have a place.
Thanks to online learning, you don’t need any degree to create and sell your own online courses.
And you can teach any topic you have a passion for.
Police Officer
Even though technology and science are advancing, human nature is still the same.
We’ll still have crime and criminals, and we’ll need somebody to deal with the criminals.
We might have fewer cops in the future, but they’ll still be around.
Maid/Housekeeper
We still haven’t invented any sort of machine that can do most housework.
Robots can sweep the floor (as long as there is no furniture to move) and machines can do dishes and laundry, but somebody has to load them.
Housekeepers will be a fixture of our cities for a long time to come.
Nurse/Nurse’s Assistant
It might soon be possible to have software that diagnoses disease, but nobody’s invented a machine that can change a bedpan or give a child an injection.
Nor has anybody built a machine that can console a patient.
Good nurses will still be worth their weight in gold in the future.
Salesperson
Thankfully nobody’s figured out how to create a computer program that can talk you into buying what you don’t need.
Since there will probably be more stuff in the future, we’ll probably need more people to sell it.
In particular, somebody will have to convince you why you need all the new wonders of technology coming off the assembly lines.
Robot Revolution? 10 Jobs That Won’t Be Lost To Robots – Conclusion
As previously mentioned, being your own boss allows you control of your income and future.
Becoming an entrepreneur isn’t for everyone, sure.
But everyone should have some sort of side hustle to fall back on if their job goes belly up.
