The future of our jobs

(Photo: Michel Euler – AP)

The headlines from last week’s World Economic Forum meeting attended by 40 heads of government in Davos, Switzerland, focused on Islamic State terrorism, collapsing oil prices and Europe’s refugee crisis. But what I found most interesting — and under-reported — was the group’s forecast that robots will kill more than five million jobs over the next five years.

A massive study released at the WEF meeting warned that advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, 3-D printers, genetics, biotechnology and other new technologies will have a bigger impact on employment than many people thought. And the new technologies will affect workers in industrialized and developing countries alike, unless countries update their education systems.

Among the most endangered jobs will be those of sales people, cashiers, administrative clerks, assembly line workers and taxi drivers, the report says. Growing automation of checkout processes will phase out large numbers of cashiers’ at stores, while online shopping will continue reducing sales jobs.

Simultaneously, advanced robots and 3-D printers will affect mass manufacturing industries because more assembly-line workers will be replaced by robots or individualized 3-D production at homes or local printers.

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