Recent polling suggests that Americans are worried about technology taking their jobs, and a new report indicates that isn’t too far from the truth at least in the near future.
CBS News just cited this research penned by senior economist Nico Palesch of Oxford Economics. It said research suggests robots and other automation technologies could replace 20% of U.S. jobs over the next two decades.
Furthermore, CBS News said Oxford Economics noted that “tech able to replace most or all of the functions currently performed by human workers already exists and is commercially available.”
“That being said, just because there is the potential for automation doesn’t mean these jobs are all going to be automated this year, next year or even within five years,” Palesch said. “Progress is incremental and ongoing.”
Other economists from the same firm, cited by Audacy earlier this year, have also argued that adoption of artificial intelligence to replace human workers isn’t as booming as some of its champions indicate. Another report by Gartner, a business insights and technology company, actually predicted that 50% of companies that attributed headcount cuts to AI will actually rehire human staff by next year.
Still, Palesch said that much of the focus regarding the impact of AI has been on white-collar workers. Automation is also impacting jobs like truck driving and warehouse work. In fact, his report found that the transportation and logistics sector is one of the most vulnerable to automation, with around 60% of jobs that could potential to be automated over the next 20 years.
“These jobs are not evenly distributed across the economy; they are, in fact, concentrated in a number of sectors where they make up an extraordinarily high amount of the workforce,” said the report.
Per CBS, the report covered more than 800 different occupations to determine their level of vulnerability to automation. Manufacturing, accommodation and catering, retail, wholesale and trade and extraction were also identified as vulnerable sectors.
Employment projections from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that state and local government, healthcare and social assistance, retail trade and manufacturing were the most common fields for Americans to work in as of 2024. Palesch stressed that vulnerable sectors won’t necessarily be swallowed up in automation all at once.
“Restaurants are not firing all cashiers on day one and replacing them. But as it becomes more widespread, they stop hiring cashiers as much,” he said.
Even a slow change can have impact, though. Manufacturing Dive reported last year that manufacturing jobs have been declining since February 2023 and more broadly since 1979.
“Now, factors such as the increasing use of AI and automation, tariff changes, tightening immigration policies, and an aging workforce are leading to further decline,” said the outlet. It also said that manufacturing companies have been facing a labor shortage that makes automation look attractive, even if it carries the risk of pushing out existing workers.
Concerns about automation aren’t new. The Economist reported on “automation anxiety” hitting the West in 2018, for example. Audacy has also reported on layoffs at major companies attributed at least in part to AI.
As of this week, YouGov polling indicates that 58% of Americans don’t trust AI much or at all and a 45% plurality said it is more likely to have a negative than positive impact on the economy. Most Americans think AI will decrease job availability.
In an August report, the BLS said that “demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-based systems,” and other tech is actually expected to drive job growth in the professional and information sectors over the coming years. CBS News also noted that “economists routinely express confidence that the latest crop of emerging technologies, including robots and AI, will boost the economy’s productivity, leading to job creation.”
“The demand for work is not going to go away, because together with automation comes the need to maintain robots, design robots, to teach people how to use robots,” Palesch said.