A recent article in The Economist discussed the likely impacts of technological development on jobs, with an emphasis on which jobs are especially vulnerable to being replaced with hardware or software automation.
The article included a chart listing some of the jobs projected to be most and least vulnerable, respectively:
Some bad news for both people working for telemarketing firms and everyone with a telephone is that the telemarketers of the future are expected to be robots.
More disruptive, in terms of people’s career planning, is the set of presently white collar jobs potentially at risk to automation: accountants and auditors, technical writers, and real estate agents are all identified as being at risk. Pharmacists can probably be added to that list.
For now, dentists, athletic trainers, and clergy remain safe from being replaced by software or robots.
The machines are not just cleverer, they also have access to far more data. The combination of big data and smart machines will take over some occupations wholesale; in others it will allow firms to do more with fewer workers. Text-mining programs will displace professional jobs in legal services. Biopsies will be analysed more efficiently by image-processing software than lab technicians. Accountants may follow travel agents and tellers into the unemployment line as tax software improves. Machines are already turning basic sports results and financial data into good-enough news stories.
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