Half of US jobs at risk of computerization

A new study suggests nearly half of low-skill workers in the United States will probably lose their jobs within the next 20 years.

According to AP, a recent report from the Oxford Martin School’s Program on the Impacts of Future Technology predicted that some 45 percent of America’s occupations would be automated within the next two decades due to rapid advances in technology.
The authors believe the takeover will happen in two stages.
In the first stage, “computers will start replacing people in especially vulnerable fields like transportation/logistics, production labor, and administrative support. Jobs in services, sales, and construction may also be lost in this first stage,” technologyreview.com said, citing the study.
The website added “Then, the rate of replacement will slow down due to bottlenecks in harder-to-automate fields such engineering. This ‘technological plateau’ will be followed by a second wave of computerization, dependent upon the development of good artificial intelligence. This could next put jobs in management, science and engineering, and the arts at risk.”
According to the study, several other factors like regulation of new technology and access to cheap labor will also affect this trend.
The authors of the report said their findings imply that “as technology races ahead, low-skill workers will reallocate to tasks that are non-susceptible to computerization-i.e., tasks that required creative and social intelligence.”