The top 30 jobs most at risk from technology


By Neil Patrick

Is your job at risk of being taken by a machine?

As technology continues to take jobs from people, so I’ve accelerated my research to try and figure out what this means for the future of work and what we can do about it.

I spend a lot of time talking to diverse experts who have insight on this subject and digging out relatively obscure research. This is far away from mainstream media which is high on attention grabbing headlines, but low on valuable insights.

So I was pleased today to discover a research paper by Oxford University academics Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne published in September 2013. Their research examines how susceptible jobs are to computerisation.

Their paper is titled: The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation?

You can read the whole document here.

Frey and Osborne developed a model which examined the current and anticipated capabilities of technology and then compared the tasks involved in carrying out over 700 different jobs. This enabled them to then rank each job by its vulnerability to being reduced or eliminated by technology in the future.



Of course, robots and IT systems are still unable to match the depth and breadth of human perception. While basic pattern recognition is reasonably mature, enabled by the development of sophisticated algorithms, sensors and lasers, significant challenges remain for more complex perceptive tasks.

So some jobs are at high risk. Others are currently relatively immune.

Computers are not so good for example at identifying objects and their properties in a cluttered field of view - hence the very nature of those annoying Captchas... Similarly, tasks that involve a complex and unstructured work environment make jobs less susceptible to computerisation.

The least at risk jobs therefore include:

Recreational Therapists
Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers,
Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers
Audiologists
Occupational Therapists
Orthotists and Prosthetists
Healthcare Social Workers
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
First-Line Supervisors of Fire Fighting and Prevention Workers
Dietitians and Nutritionists
Choreographers
Sales Engineers
Physicians and Surgeons
Psychologists,
First-Line Supervisors of Police and Detectives
Dentists
Elementary School Teachers

But even these jobs are indirectly at risk. Whilst the whole of a job may be currently impossible for a machine to replicate, parts of that job may well be perfectly capable of being replaced or aided by technology.

This fact in turn means that fewer people are needed to deliver the same amount of work.

And business has a habit of quickly finding ways round current technological limitations. If a human task cannot be replicated exactly by a machine, then why not just adapt the task so it can be?

So the limitations of perception by machines can sometimes be sidestepped by clever task design. For example, Kiva Systems, acquired by Amazon.com in 2012, solved the problem of warehouse navigation for its robots by simply placing bar-code stickers on the floor, informing them of their precise location. Problem solved! And fewer humans needed…

Anyway, the title of this post promised the top 30 most at risk jobs as identified by the research.

And here they are (and I sincerely hope your job is not on the list).

672. Legal Secretaries
673. Radio Operators
674. Driver/Sales Workers
675. Claims Adjusters, Examiners, and Investigators
676. Parts Salespersons
677. Credit Analysts
678. Milling and Planing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal
and Plastic
679. Shipping, Receiving, and Traffic Clerks
680. Procurement Clerks
681. Packaging and Filling Machine Operators and Tenders
682. Etchers and Engravers
683. Tellers
684. Umpires, Referees, and Other Sports Officials
685. Insurance Appraisers, Auto Damage
686. Loan Officers
687. Order Clerks
688. Brokerage Clerks
689. Insurance Claims and Policy Processing Clerks
690. Timing Device Assemblers and Adjusters
691. Data Entry Keyers
692. Library Technicians
693. New Accounts Clerks
694. Photographic Process Workers and Processing Machine Operators
695. Tax Preparers
696. Cargo and Freight Agents
697. Watch Repairers
698. Insurance Underwriters
699. Mathematical Technicians
700. Sewers, Hand
701. Title Examiners, Abstractors, and Searchers
702. Telemarketers

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