Author: Jeff Rosenthal
Recently, McKinsey and Company produced a short report regarding automation that was written up in the NY Times. The report says that:
1. Automation will not make occupations obsolete so much as it will change activities within occupations. About 45% of work activities can be automated.
2. While fewer than 5% of occupations can be entirely automated, a majority of occupations can automate about 30% or more of the constituent activities.
3. Many activities of even the highest-paid occupations like financial planners can be automated while conversely, few of the activities of many low-wage occupations like home health aides can be automated.
4. Tasks like creativity and sensing emotions are difficult to automate. As other activities can be automated, workers may eventually spend more of their work effort on these creative or emotion sensing activities.
This research will help our understanding of the nature of automation and its impact on workers in the economy. Automation often goes hand in hand with the bifurcation of jobs of high-wage and low-wage work and movement towards cognitive, non-routine work, a topic covered in a previous entry. Analyzing tasks rather than the occupations themselves provides a useful view of the tasks and skills required in our future economy. At LEAD, we are conducting research on skills projections that will look at required skills in the workplace associated with projected employment. Be on the lookout for this work in the upcoming year!