Automation Could Replace Half of All Jobs

Half of all jobs and 70% of low-skill jobs could be replaced by technology in the next 10 to 20 years. A USA TODAY analysis of data from Economic Modeling Specialists International and ASA corporate partner CareerBuilder revealed that nearly 1.0 million of the 2.4 million new low-skill jobs forecast to be added in the U.S. by 2017 will be home health care workers, food service workers, retail salespeople, and custodians. However, these jobs could be made obsolete by technology such as the Home-Exploring Robot Butler currently under development.

Employers in many industries say that technology is more efficient, provides better quality than human labor, and much less burdensome thanks to government’s new never ending employment regulations. This is especially true with jobs that easily can be turned into computer code, such as toll booth operators, travel agents, telephone operators, production workers, and bank tellers.