According to new research by Leisure Jobs, 47% of the human workforce could be replaced by robots by the year 2035. It’s not quite the futuristic predictions we often make in Sci-Fi movies; it’s less than 20 years in the future!
What kind of jobs are most at risk?
If you’re wondering what jobs have the highest risk rates, careers such as modelling, animal breeding, butchering, construction work and training conducting are the high-risk jobs in the research data. In general, the jobs most at risk were jobs that were based heavily around routine, especially roles that would benefit majorly from increases in efficiency or from automation.
“Previous technological revolutions happened much more slowly, so people had longer to retrain, and also moved people from one kind of unskilled work to another”
Tom Standage, Deputy Editor for The Economist.
As the quote above states, technological and workplace revolutions have happened in history – but the difference here is the momentum at which the technology is growing and evolving. Whereas in the 70s, 80s and 90s, we had plenty of time to adjust to digital technology and the internet (because growth was slower), now we’re seeing changes and improvements overtaking inventions that are barely a year or two old.
It means that workforces will be at risk quicker and on a larger scale than ever before.
What jobs are safe choices?
If you’re thinking of readjusting your career path into a field that’s a little safer from the Robot replacements – then here are some job titles with low-risk factors.
- 0.4% – Police Supervisor
- 1.2% – Psychologist
- 1.8% – Architect
- 3.0% – Purchasing Manager
- 3.8% – Veterinarian
Jobs with lower risk factors tend to be job roles that require human input. Human input could be a variety of things, such as manual risk assessing, reading emotions, interpreting tone of voice or people management. Many creative roles are also very low risk – creativity and originality aren’t necessarily things you can programme into a robot.
What about Financial Advisors?
The risk factor for Financial Advisors is calculated at 58%, putting it in the medium risk bracket, and with 75% of the Financial Advisor workforce being male, this puts more men at risk than women.
Financial Advisor roles have natural declined in recent years, with a steady decline happening since 2010. However, Leisure Jobs has estimated that this risk factor, and calculating the amount of Financial Advisors hired in recent years – could still result in a loss of 290,755 jobs in the sector by 2035.
If you want to know more about different jobs’ roles and how the rise of robots could affect other industries – visit the Leisure jobs website.
