Which Jobs Face The Highest Risk Of Automation?

According to Goldman researchers, AI will impact nearly 300 million full-time jobs worldwide. 

Another study by McKinsey predicts that around 12 million workers in the US may have to change jobs due to automation in the next decade. 

Can these predictions come true in the near future? Do you need to worry about unemployment?

Keep reading to find out. 

After reading this article, you’ll be able to know:

• The occupations that are at a high risk of automation.
• Limitations of automation.
• How to ensure your job security.
• Other insights on automation.

What jobs are at risk of automation?

A study by Oxford University states that 47% of modern-day jobs can be replaced by automation by 2033. What are these jobs? Let’s look in detail.

The jobs with the below features are at a higher risk of automation:

• Routine tasks include data collection, entry, and elementary data processing.
• Jobs that don’t require creativity.
• Jobs that don’t need interpersonal skills.

If the task is repetitive, doesn’t need a creative mind, or there’s no requirement for communication, it’s easy to automate those. Hence, AI can easily replace such jobs.  

According to McKinsey studies, customer service and sales, office administration, manufacturing, and food services are the four main sectors that are expected to experience a job decline due to automation. 

Moreover, job automation will mainly impact the low-wage workers in the US. They are 14 times more likely to change jobs.

According to the Global Investment Research by Goldman Sachs, the following are the ten most affected sectors by AI automation. 

• Office and administrative support
• Legal
• Architecture and Engineering
• Life, physical, and social science
• Business and financial operations
• Community and social service
• Management
• Sales
• Computer and mathematical
• Farming, fishing, and forestry

Jobs Automation: 11 Most Vulnerable Jobs

What jobs are at higher risk of being displaced by AI, and why? Let’s delve deep into this matter.  

Tech Jobs

With the development of machine learning, tech jobs such as software developers, software engineers, and data scientists are at risk of automation. Let’s discuss this in detail.

ChatGPT and OpenAI-like software can write code accurately and faster than humans. Another important thing is the quality. AI can analyze previous code and produce code that is of high quality and is dependable. 

So, entry-level coders are highly likely to be replaced by machine learning software. 

AI can replicate some of the work of software developers, including documentation, debugging, and creating unit tests. 

However, more advanced work like designing innovative software, problem-solving, and understanding user needs require humans. So, AI can only partially replace highly skilled software engineers.   

AI can replicate data cleaning and processing that data scientists do, but human understanding is required to interpret the results. Hence, highly skilled data scientists cannot be replaced by automation. 

These days, IT companies are facing a workforce shortage. If companies can replace routine tasks with automation, the gap can be filled without additional labor costs.

There are also low-code or no-code software to design websites and web applications. People without high skills in IT can also write code and design websites using these tools. 

Even though computer programming and coding are in-demand skills, there is a risk of automation in the future. 

Personal Financial Advisors

AI is good at crunching numbers. Hence, finance jobs such as financial analysts and personal financial advisors that require dealing with large numbers of data are at risk of automation.  

As a financial analyst, you must extract numbers from various places, compile them, and then work on them. AI can perform this task much faster than humans. 

Now, about the market trends. You can predict market trends accurately when there’s more data. AI technologies can collect much more data than humans and analyze them faster and more accurately. 

Considering all the above facts, automation can replace finance jobs. 

Customer Service Agents 

Some companies already use chatbots as their customer service agent. You would have come across one by now. 

A research company, Gartner, predicts that 25% of companies will use chatbots as their primary customer service channels by 2027. 

Are chatbots better at customer service than humans?

AI is becoming good at having natural conversations. It can also handle a large number of customer queries promptly. 

So, AI reduces the workload of the customer service team and reduces costs, too. 

Still, some researchers state the best customer service will be integrating humans and chatbots and not chatbots alone. 

Traders And Investment Bankers

Automated trading systems are more efficient in trading than humans. 

Why? Because AI doesn’t involve human emotions while making decisions. By nullifying human emotions, AI makes better trading decisions than humans. 

AI-driven natural language processing can perform more accurate data analysis, decision-making, and risk management than humans.

It means traders and bankers might have to change their roles within the industry. They’ll have to learn new skills for developing trading algorithms and handling clients while AI performs rigid routine tasks.   

Accountants

The accounting field keeps evolving with technology, from abacus to electronic calculators, digital spreadsheets, and accounting software.

Will AI replace accountants?

Accountants record, compile, categorize, and summarize data. These tasks can be automated easily. AI can also perform these tasks much faster than humans. 

Companies might automate the above mundane tasks and allow their accountants to do other jobs, such as insightful analysis and interpretation. 

Hence, accountants must improve their skills and be ready to perform more challenging tasks.  

Market Research Analysts

Market research analysts process vast quantitative data, detect trends and patterns, and make predictions. 

AI can do all the above, but there’s a downside. 

AI solely depends on the data it is trained on. It might miss special situations while making predictions. It cannot understand the psychology behind certain decisions of a person. These factors can negatively affect the decisions made. 

While AI excels at market research, it cannot replace human insights, contextual knowledge, holistic thinking, and creativity, essential to making better predictions. 

Therefore, rather than replacing humans, integrating AI with human insights will greatly benefit companies.

Telemarketers

Telemarketers have a very high likelihood of automation in a few years. 

The job of telemarketers involves repetitive, predictable work that doesn’t require human judgment or social or emotional intelligence. Hence, technology can replace them. 

Moreover, the conversion rates through direct phone calls are usually less than 10%, which is a minimal amount. By automating the process, companies can save labor costs too. 

Graphic Designers

The job of a graphic designer is to create visual content for websites, media, and advertisements. 

With the recent advances in AI software such as DALL-E, graphic designers are concerned about unemployment.

Graphic designing needs some creativity. Hence, AI has some limitations when it comes to graphic design. 

AI can generate designs based on existing templates and the user’s input. It can’t make brand-new designs. Moreover, AI designs lack the cultural and emotional context of human designs. 

So, what’s the job of AI in graphic design?

It makes the work easy for you. The major designing software you use, like Canva and Adobe Spark, uses an AI algorithm to suggest templates, fonts, and colors. This saves time; even people with little expertise can design using this software.

Therefore, the concern is not about job loss but lower wages. Studies predict the integration of AI in graphic designing will lead to lower wages for graphic designers.   

Legal Assistants 

Legal industry workers, including paralegals and legal assistants, work with language-based data. 

They go through vast amounts of text-based data, understand, interpret, and present them in simple form. Artificial intelligence can replicate the above tasks easily, and they’ll be more efficient in analyzing such data. 

The bright side is that legal jobs require some level of human judgment that AI cannot do. So, it must be an integration of AI and humans, where AI is used to increase the efficiency of the job rather than replacing humans entirely. 

Media Jobs

AI is apt to read, interpret, and understand a vast amount of text-based data. Some researchers believe ChatGPT, like AI software, is more efficient than humans in creating content and reports. 

Media companies have already started experimenting with AI-generated content. Buzzfeed is an example. Buzzfeed, an American news and entertainment company, has recently used AI to create quizzes and travel guides. 

Considering the above facts, the media workforce, including content creators, journalists, technical writers, and advertisers, will likely be replaced by artificial intelligence.

Bookkeeping Clerks

Bookkeeping involves recording financial transactions daily, which is a repetitive task without any human insights. Hence, it’s at a high risk of being automated and is expected to decline by 4.5% by 2031.   

There is a lot of software at present for bookkeeping. Microsoft Office, Freshbooks, and Quickbooks are some of them. 

How Do We Protect The Workers At Risk Of Being Displaced By The AI Revolution?

If your job is structured, repetitive, and can be automated by a machine, do you need to worry about being jobless in the future?

You don’t have to. Here’s why.

The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025, technology will create more than 12 million new jobs than the jobs lost. 

How? AI can’t work on its own. They work with the input we feed them. Even if repetitive jobs are replaced by machine learning, humans must input and manage the data. So, AI will cause some occupations to disappear, while at the same time, it will create many new employment opportunities. 

Workers will need to reskill and upskill to get a new job and to ensure job security. 

What are the skills you need to develop?

According to the Department of Labor Statistics, the jobs predicted to have a projected growth in the next ten years require a mix of the following skills:

• Technical expertise
• Soft skills
• Active listening 
• Critical thinking
• Continuous learning
• Social perceptiveness
• Higher education levels

According to Score Beyond, Coursera, Masterclass, Skillshare, and other e-learning platforms, provide many courses to develop skills for your career path.  

Companies must focus on conducting training programs for their workers and addressing the challenges they face to gain training. Some of the challenges include:

• Lack of time to participate in training with work and family obligations.
• Lack of finance to invest in training.

By providing financial support and wraparound services, companies can ensure their employees gain enough skills to choose a new career path if their jobs are lost after automation.

Moreover, the training programs should specifically focus on developing skills required for jobs resistant to automation. 

Limitations Of Job Automation 

According to the Oxford University study, there are three main areas where humans excel compared to robots. What are they?

Human Qualities

Humans can perceive and understand complex, irregular objects, whereas AI can only perceive structured objects. In addition, robots still need to be apt at expressing human emotions. 

We expect personalized customer service from a human who can maintain interpersonal relationships and trust more than a robot for specific tasks. For example, imagine a robot being in a hair salon. There’s doubt whether it will have a large crowd.

Creativity 

Both physiological and environmental factors play a role in developing human creative intelligence. So, scientists aren’t capable of imparting creativity to a robot. 

Therefore, jobs requiring creative intelligence, such as artists, marketers, and creative writers, are at a low risk of being replaced by AI.

Social Skills

AI lacks social intelligence. So, they need to improve at jobs that require social skills such as persuasion and negotiation. 

Even though social robotics studies are ongoing, they’re still in the early stages. 

Other cons of using artificial intelligence for job automation include:

• Using artificial intelligence for jobs can save money in the long run, but you need a high initial setup cost.

• Technical issues in automated workplaces can reduce efficiency. Hardware failures, software glitches, and cybersecurity are some examples. 

• People cannot perform those tasks manually when they get used to automation for an extended period. It creates a skill gap.

• In some industries, customers prefer assistance from a human rather than robot assistance. In such cases, using AI can negatively impact customer satisfaction.

• If AI replaces certain occupations, unemployed people must search for new employment opportunities. This can create social and economic challenges. 

What Are The Positive Impacts Of Automation On The Job Market

Let’s look at the pros of automation on the job market.

• AI is more productive than humans. So they can perform tasks within a short period.

• Artificial intelligence is capable of delivering quality work, nullifying human errors. This leads to higher customer satisfaction. 

• If AI can perform hazardous tasks, it’s beneficial for humans.

• AI is more flexible. Companies are capable of upscaling and downscaling production according to the demand. This reduces wastage and saves money in the long run. 

AI increases efficiency, reduces labor costs, and improves the economy. Moreover, it saves employees’ time, which can be invested in more innovative tasks. 

Studies also state that automation will grow jobs in various industries such as healthcare, construction, education, IT, and management. 

Is AI Automation A Reason For People Quitting Jobs?

When people returned to work after the pandemic, they quit at a rate of 5.9% from April to December 2021. This is the highest quit rate recorded so far. 

Was automation a reason for that? Let’s find out.

Employees state various reasons for quitting their jobs. Below are the main reasons:

• Low salary.
• Toxic workplace culture.
• Stress.
• Lack of flexibility.
• Feeling disrespected and undervalued.
• Lack of opportunities for career growth and promotions.

As you can see, automation has yet to be a reason people quit their jobs.

Risk Of Job Automation Vs. Age And Sex

Do sex and age affect the risk of automation?

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in England, 70.2% of the jobs that are at a high risk of automation are held by women.

15.7% of young people between the ages of 20-24 are in jobs at high risk of automation. 

People aged between 35 and 39 hold roles with the lowest risk of automation. 

Again, the risk of automation increases for people aged 40-44 and upwards. 

What’s the reason for this pattern?

When people enter the job market at a young age, they are inexperienced and work as part-time workers. So, they get entry-level employment opportunities that involve work that can be automated.

With time, they gain skills and experience and move to occupations requiring high-level skills at a low risk of being automated. 

Above 35, most women choose part-time occupations due to family obligations. So, the high risk of automation from age 35 and upwards might be part-time occupations.

Factors Affecting The Pace Of Job Automation

Five main factors affect how fast we adapt to technology. Let’s look into each factor in more detail. 

Labor Market Dynamics

Labor market dynamics affect the pace at which an industry adopts technology. For example, consider the food industry. It’s at a high risk of automation. Still, the people are not replaced by machines due to their low wages. 

Economy

You might be assuming AI is more cost-effective. Just think about it. As we discussed earlier, AI can’t substitute humans fully. Most occupations need humans to complete the work, and AI helps increase efficiency. 

The involvement of both AI and humans is economically disadvantageous.

Cost Of Implementation

Companies need to invest a large sum of money in implementing automation. This slows down the start-up. 

Commercial Availability

Many technologies are limited to lab conditions. Even the few available are in the early stages of development. Will they be efficient while scaling up? This answer is yet to be known.

Ethical Issues

Social, legal, and ethical issues are crucial factors that determine the pace at which job automation is done. 

As you know, it takes time for people to accept automation and change their attitudes toward it. Similarly, legal changes also take longer to implement. It may take years, even if the technology is fully ready.

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Jobs That Are At The Lowest Risk Of AI Automation

Jobs that require human qualities such as emotional intelligence, social skills, and creative intelligence are at a low risk of automation. 

Complex jobs that require flexibility and lack a rigid routine also have a low risk of automation. 

According to the US Career Institute, jobs in the healthcare sector have the lowest risk of automation as these jobs require high skills and flexibility. 

The US Career Institute has listed 65 jobs at the lowest risk of automation and will show a projected growth in the next decade. I’ll list the top 15 jobs out of the 65.

• Nurse Practitioners
• Choreographers
• Physician Assistants
• Mental Health Counselors
• Nursing Instructors And Teachers
• Coaches And Scouts
• Athletic Trainers
• Physical Therapists
• Orthotists And Prosthetists
• Occupational Therapists
• Marriage And Family Therapists
• Art Therapists
• Music Therapists
• Healthcare Social Workers
• Bioengineers And Biomedical Engineers

The above jobs with the lowest risk of automation are listed in order of their projected growth by  2032 from highest to lowest. Check out the twenty most popular jobs today and for the future here. 

Nurse practitioners’ jobs are predicted to grow by 45.7% by 2032, and other jobs less than that. 

Why do nurse practitioners have the lowest risk of automation?

Nurse practitioners require many skills to excel in their jobs. Some skills include empathy, caring, persuasion, negotiation, and social perceptiveness. 

In addition, you have to complete a master’s or doctoral degree. It’s a long career path requiring higher education, skills, and hands-on expertise. Artificial intelligence can’t replicate the above skills. Check out some of the nursing programs available in the USA here. 

Tip: It’s better to select a career with the lowest risk of automation and high job growth in the future.

FAQs

1. Which Tech Jobs Are Safe From Artificial Intelligence?

AI ethicists, cybersecurity professionals, user experience (UX) designers, highly skilled software engineers, and data scientists will be safe from job loss due to automation in the future.

2. What Are Some Characteristics Of Jobs That Are Unlikely To Be Replaced By Automation?

The development of technology cannot replace jobs requiring creativity, critical thinking, complex decision-making, empathy, and hands-on experience.

3. Is AI Putting Jobs At Risk?

Occupations with a repetitive routine can be replaced by technology, but jobs requiring human qualities and knowledge are at low risk of automation. Even though some occupations will be lost, AI will create more employment opportunities than jobs lost.

Final Thoughts 

Technology will likely fully replace certain occupations, such as customer service agents and telemarketers, in a few years. 

However, AI can’t fully replicate most occupations. It can only perform essential work; human involvement is necessary to complete it successfully. 

Companies experience growth and development by integrating technology with human knowledge. Be adaptable. Work on skill development and keep up with the technology through continuous learning to secure employment.