Are you concerned that layoffs and the potential of a declining economy will cost you your job? Well you can add automation to your list of worries, especially if you’re currently in college or just entering the workforce.
According to the McKinsey Global Institute, a private-sector think tank, as many as 375 million current jobs may be automated as soon as 2030. McKinsey’s study warns that physical jobs in predictable environments — machine operators, fast-food cooks — are the most likely to become obsolete. Those who collect and process data are also at significant risk.
To avoid becoming a victim of automation, working men and women would be wise to train in fields different from their own — it’s never too soon to start — and broaden their resumes as much as possible to remain marketable in what could be challenging times.
“The model where people go to school for the first 20 years of life and work for the next 40 or 50 years is broken,” Susan Lund, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute and a co-author of the automation study, told CNN Tech. “We’re going to have to think about learning and training throughout the course of your career.”
It’s not all necessarily doom and gloom, though. Lund suggested that, as we’ve seen before — computers eliminated some jobs when they blew up in the 1980s before creating millions of new ones — this massive transition period could create new opportunities, but it will take an effort from all parties: employees, companies, and the government.
“The dire predictions that robots are taking our jobs are overblown,” Lund told CNN. “Yes, work will be automated, [but] there will be enough jobs for everyone in most areas.”
Gardners, plumbers, child-care workers and elder-care workers are some of the occupations that have a low probability of becoming automated.
Are you worried about robots taking your job, and will you consider changing fields to combat potential unemployment in the future? Let us know in the comments section, and make sure to SHARE this article with everyone you know who’s in the workforce!