This is how many jobs automation could cost

Published on: August 30, 2018 / Update from: November 3, 2018 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

This is how many jobs automation could cost – @shutterstock | Power best

20.5 million jobs – which corresponds to 48 percent of all jobs – could be automated in Germany alone.

This emerges from a current publication by the consulting firm McKinsey. It's not just simple tasks that are at risk of being replaced by machines or computers.

The range extends from suppliers, who could be replaced by autonomous cars and drones, to production and even white collar jobs. It recently became known that a Japanese insurance company wants to replace several dozen employees with artificial intelligence. Globally, more than a billion jobs could be lost - analysts estimate the automation potential to be around 630 million jobs in China and India alone.

There are very significant differences between individual industries and sometimes surprising results. For example, it occurs that 64 percent of the positions in the manufacturing trade are threatened. On the other hand, it seems less obvious that 66 percent of employees should be replaced in the area of ​​“accommodation & gastronomy”. Basically, the risk of automation decreases with increasing complexity. In the “Corporate Services, Scientific and Technical Services” segment-comparatively few jobs (39 percent) are threatened-among which IT jobs should also fall.

However, not everyone believes it is a given that the number of jobs will actually decline. According to a study by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), around 1.5 million jobs will be lost by 2025, but around 1.5 million will be created at the same time.

You can find more infographics at Statista