Hello and welcome to ZD Tech, ZDNet’s daily editorial podcast. My name is Clarisse Treilles, and today I will explain to you why our jobs are not all destined to disappear in favor of robots. And as for yours, well, listen to this episode.
Should we fear an invasion of job-killing robots? Nothing is less sure. Current studies show that the disappearance of labor in favor of automation should be put into perspective.
12 million jobs at risk?
In the worst disaster scenarios, the advent of robots is seen as a threat to low-skilled jobs. Others, more optimistic, believe that the automation of repetitive and difficult tasks is certainly an asset for workers. This makes some of the physical effort disappear. And can lead to tasks with higher added value, such as maintenance or supervision work for example.
Here is a telling example. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, robots on wheels roamed hospitals and airports, such as Nice, to disinfect and eradicate the virus.
According to a Forrester study on the future of the labor market, automation could make 12 million jobs redundant in the next 20 years. But what exactly do we mean by that?
A demographic factor to take into account
The jobs most at risk of disappearing are above all the medium-skilled jobs, which consist of routine tasks. They represent nearly 34% of the workforce in France.
12 million, that impresses. But let’s take those numbers with a grain of salt. Automation is not the source of all evil. Forrester also takes into account the aging of the European population as a key factor in these job losses. In 2050, Europe will have 30 million fewer people of working age than in 2020.
Moreover, not all the professions directly affected by automation are destined to disappear. Some jobs will be transformed. This is the case, for example, of operators in logistics warehouses, who, assisted by machines, carry out more complex tasks.
The new professions
And new professions will also emerge. Forrester estimates that 9 million new jobs will be created in Europe by 2040 in emerging sectors, such as green energy and smart cities.
If we put all these elements end to end, we arrive at a result much less catastrophic than the loss of 12 million jobs. 3 million jobs are really threatened with disappearing within 20 years in favor of automation, assures the research firm.
3 million, yes, that’s still a high number. But the job market is far from frozen by then. To adapt to the changes to come, some organizations are preparing the ground for automation with training, both to recruit new talent, but also to retain and enhance existing staff.
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