We will be replaced by robots. McKinsey & Company, an American multinational active in the management consultancy sector has published a study on the impact, for employment, of the automation of work.
According to the expert analysis, based on around 750 occupations, 45% of all currently active work activities can be automated through already existing technologies. In other words, the activity of the worker has less and less incidence than that of the machines and in the future the gap can only widen.
Based on the McKinsey study, the 60% of occupations are at risk of automation for 30% of activities. But the US giant has gone even further, creating one interactive tool which allows you to understand the danger that workers run according to the sector of their profession. The data refer to the US labor market; but they can be extended, generally, to advanced economies around the world, including Europe.
The results contained in the report published by McKinsey also confirm a study by the World Economic Forum, according to which 5 million people are at risk of being replaced by automatons governed by algorithms. In this case the researchers surveyed among the top managers of the 350 largest companies globally. According to the analysis, the next industrial revolution, already called “Industry 4.0” will put 7 million jobs at risk. It should be taken into consideration that today in highly automated sectors such as the automotive sector, robots perform almost 90 percent of the tasks and the trend between now and 2020 can only expand. According to what can be read in the World Economic Forum report, the most affected professions will be clerical ones, in particular administration, accounting and finance.
But it's still there who can save themselves: they are the workers employed in the sectors called STEM, acronym of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (mathematics, computer science, natural sciences, technology).
