A report from the Oxford Martin School in 2013 concluded that 47% of manufacturing jobs were susceptible to automaton. A recent report from the National Bureau of Economic Research in the United States has taken the findings a step further. Not only does it back up the Oxford Martin Report, it suggests that the jobs have already gone and won’t be coming back. The report concludes that robots in manufacturing had resulting in 6.2 job losses and reduced wages by up to half a percent. “Using this approach,” the report says, “we estimate large and robust negative effects of robots on employment and wages across commuting zones – jobs losses and lower wages are likely to have a lasting and devastating effect.”
This process is now already underway in the office environment with process and administration driven jobs most at risk.
Editors note
It’s our belief that automation in the office workplace provides an opportunity for personal assistants to show their true worth to their organisations, as critical thinking, ethics and ambassadorial skills, together with the professionalism used in their day to day tasks, becomes increasingly evident. The need though, to stay current and invest in vocational training and education is now an essential requirement, rather than an option.
