- Taxi Drivers, Truck Drivers, People driving themselves thanks to Google Cars: this has massive implications as it will reduce the cost of haulage, change people's behaviors (more people going out as they won't have to worry about drink driving etc.)
- Accountants - Look at companies like Xero which are already starting to make accountants redundant, the same will also apply to government officials such as the inland revenue.
- Customer Service/Help Desk jobs - As technology gets better at answering questions online and being able to make automatous decisions, most customer help jobs will disappear.
- PA's as technology improves even fewer will be required.
- Personal Asset Managers - this is already starting to happen as software can now create better optimized portfolios than people can put together.
- Soldiers - Already starting to happen with drone airplanes & drone tanks etc.
- Even web developers - With products like Wix.com only getting better, the absolute number of web developers required will ironically decrease as the web gets bigger.
Co-founder of Flooved Ltd
Back in the day firms would hire a rookie lawyer to do the grunt work such as discovery review, legal research, and writing. Technology has evolved so that a partner can now instead email a lawyer in India at the end of the workday with an assignment and the Indian lawyer will do the research, prepare the legal brief, and email it back to the American lawyer overnight so that it's in the partner's Inbox the next morning. This saves the lawyer from paying FICA taxes, benefits, office space, phone lines, and all the other expenses that come with hiring an employee.
As a result, rookie lawyers are having trouble finding jobs and gaining valuable experience.
Shane Fischer, Attorney at Law
Shane E. Fischer, P.A.
Winter Park, FL
We have analyzed the handwriting of more than 150,000 medical doctors worldwide, including more than a score of clinical specialists, and in the USA at the very bottom of the scale for optimism and high on the scale of stress and depression are the MALE OB/GYNs.
The female OB/GYNs are doing just fine.
Don't expect there to be more than a handful of male OB/GYNs in America in a decade or so.
We are an international biometric handwriting analysis company whose clients include many pharmaceutical industry products. That's why we have had access to so many doctors.
Sheila Kurtz
President
Graphology Consulting Group
The position of the University Professor will change dramatically in form and function in the next decade. Certain positions are likely to go extinct.
I'm a rising Sophomore in Computer Science at Stanford. 1) For large intro classes, fewer and fewer students are going to class, or having any in person interaction whatsoever. In one of our core classes, about 30% of students consistently attended lecture, while the rest watched lectures online or found alternative online study materials. 2) More students are using platforms like Coursera, Khan Academy, and MIT's OpenCourseware to either supplement, or even replace taking certain classes. They can fill in the gaps with no office hours necessary.
If students at the school with the #1 CS department in the world are still compelled to use online tools, what of the millions of students who attend schools that aren't #1 in their field? Why should they have to suffer through a mediocre lecture when they could be watching the Princeton or Stanford lecturer on Coursera. Better yet, use 2U where you can get a degree from USC, Georgetown, and other top schools online.
I see this converging towards (at least for intro classes) a handful of super-professors for each subject that teach online classes that 10,000s of students attend, while the rest are out of business. Of course, this will require hundreds of TA's for each course, but grad student labor can be obtained pretty cheaply.
Oh, and there's research that students who use ITSs (Intelligent Teaching Systems) learn BETTER than students who go to in-person classes.
Computer Science Sophomore at Stanford
The exponential rise of technology in society and business will continue to have a disruptive effect on the labor market. This downward pressure on labor has been and will continue to accelerate over time. As machines get smarter, cheaper and become more autonomous, their application as human labor replacements will continue to push workers out of many different positions across all industries creating very few alternative jobs in the process.
Before asking which professions are in danger of extinction, it's best to first define what jobs are "Safe" over the next decade; from there we can extrapolate those jobs that are in the greatest "Danger."
Technology has progressed wildly over the last 30 years and continues its exponential growth in ability, efficiency and autonomy. However despite the continued achievements in communication, data management, sensory input and software based robots, the practical application of mechanized adaptable robots is still well over a decade off. Current mechanized robots are limited to repetitive actions in a controlled environment - think the assembly line robot at a car manufacturer. Robot cleaning ladies - for example - that can function in a variety of rooms, working with varied objects and tasks are still the realm of science fiction (for now).
So what Jobs are "Safe?" As mentioned above, cleaning ladies, and waitresses, plumbers, mechanics, carpenters, artists, designers, strategic planners, and professionals along those lines. Any job that requires the use of a nimble body and/or flexible/creative mind is safe from replacement by machines for the next 10 or more years, although advancements in special recognition and other related technologies could bring mechanized workers to reality faster than we may think.
So what jobs are in "Danger"? The spectrum of Danger jobs is much broader than the Safe jobs. Any job in any industry that is communication- and/or information-based is at great risk for replacement. If a worker spends their time handling, revising, flagging, manipulating paper or digital documents in a repetitive fashion or relaying/translating company communications between internal and external personnel and companies they are at risk for replacement. Any worker sitting in a chair working on a PC in a non-creative fashion is at high risk. Currently the various software/hardware tools that have been widely adopted by business over the last 30 years have been just that, tools. They need human operators to function. With technology available today these various tools can themselves be replaced with end to end automated processes that in many cases no longer need human operators, requiring instead only a few human overseers to address non-standard issues that arise in daily operations. A few examples of these "Danger" jobs include accounts receivable/payable, bookkeeping, scheduling, creating standard field reports, communication with and directing of infield personnel, most parts of inventory management, forecasting, order processing, cash flow management, etc., to name a few. In most cases with a fully automated end to end software/hardware solution, a business could eliminate TODAY most human positions from company operations resulting in a tremendous operational savings and enhanced efficiency and accuracy.
The only limiting factor slowing the implementation of these types of fully automated systems is the speed at which companies choose to adapt. However, continually increasing labor costs and the need to stay competitive in an ever growing global economy will likely remove the choice from the matter for most businesses. As more businesses adopt automated technology into their processes, others will have to more quickly make the leap to remain competitive. Up to this point automation adoption has been somewhat linear while automation technology advancement has been exponential. Over the next decade, companies struggling in a difficult economic environment will no longer have the choice to stick with the way 'it's always been done.' This will create an exponential automaton adoption curve mirroring the exponential curve of the advancement of automation technology itself.
Dan Abbate
CEO
Robotaton
While I don't see our industry going away, I do see some dramatic shifts in the way advertising agencies plan and buy media (or more so who is doing it). Specifically there are several efforts to automate some of the processes. And while it hasn't been successful (it's been tried several times, even by Google) eventually some of our roles will evolve or possibly disappear (a very extreme case). Like most industries my media ad agency is evolving with the times and technology and using them to our (our clients') advantage.
Eric Morgan
Morgan & Co
New Orleans, LA
These jobs will be gone in 10-20 years.
1. Gas Stations
Current trends in public policy mandates suggests that our cities will soon begin to resemble more European cities, where a Smart car is considered eco-friendly than a conventional gas-powered surface transport. Consequently, traditional full-service gas stations are already hard to find anymore, especially along the country's interstate highways.
Number employed in 2008: 843,000
Number employed in 2018 (est.): 769,000
Percent decline: 8.9%
2. Department Stores
Take a walk along downtown Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, or Detroit, and ask yourself where are all the huge departments stores (Shillito's, Lazurus, Elder Beerman, Gimbles, etc.) and their glamorous windows for shopping?
Even the Macy's Day parade on Thanksgiving Day isn't about Christmas shopping at Macy's like it once meant on "Miracle on 34th Street" with little Natalie Wood.
Who wants to drive to the mall and waste gas to buy products in a department store when you can have them delivered to your door with the click of a button? Nowadays you can get anything delivered-cars, furniture, food, and even diapers! If it doesn't come via FedEx, people don't want it, because it takes too long to get it and by then the product is already yesterday's news.
Number employed in 2008: 1,557,000
Number employed in 2018 (est.): 1,398,000
Percent decline: 10.2%
3. Anything Wired
Not wireless, don't want it.
Folks don't even know how to deal with things that require a plug and an electrical cord anymore. Even our homes and hotel rooms have significantly fewer electrical outlets in which to plug in a wired cord.
Even airplanes (like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner innovations) are searching for auxiliary power that's less dependent on wires.
Number employed in 2008: 666,000
Number employed in 2018 (est.): 593,000
Percent decline: 11%
4. The Postal Service
Email has regulated snail mail to junk mail. And FedEx Next-Day Class has relegated the Postal Service to Second Class not First Class.
Now the Postal Service's very existence almost unnecessary. That's what technology and private enterprise can do - make it faster, better, and cheaper.
You can actually invite guests to your wedding using Facebook. And Twitter you can talk to your guest during the wedding ceremony via Twitter.
So, why use the pony express post rider to send a post card to one, when you can just send out a 140-character blog to thousands even millions via Twitter.
Number employed in 2008: 843,000
Number employed in 2018 (est.): 769,000
Percent decline: 8.9%
5a. Printing
Number employed in 2008: 594,000
Number employed in 2018 (est.): 499,000
Percent decline: 16%
5b. Newspaper Publishing
Number employed in 2008: 594,000
Number employed in 2018 (est.): 499,000
Percent decline: 16.0%
Just ask The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and Sun Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Huffington Post, Breitbart.com, Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. Printing newspapers and books is dying a slow death.
6. Motor Vehicle Parts Manufacturing
Quite simply, cars and their manufacturing parts are made better by robots nowadays than they were decades ago in Detroit now insolvent. Cars are especially designed to last trouble free for four years. Then, we dispose of them for the brand newest, fastest, latest, and greatest any who, right?
Number employed in 2008: 666,000
Number employed in 2018 (est.): 593,000
Percent decline: 11.0%
7. Clothing & Shoe Apparel Manufacturing
With the increasing popularity of industrial and manufacturing offshoring including outsourcing labor and the many skilled craftsmen and women, who work in clothing and shoe industries in Asia and other parts of the world, looking for the classic "Made in America" symbol of quality on shoes and clothes is becoming hard to come by these days.
Number employed in 2008: 155,000
Number employed in 2018 (est.): 67,000
Percent decline: 57.0%
The biggest question facing Americans in the next decade or two will be "What does America produce anymore, and what do Americans make these days like we once did?"
None of the above industries will fold overnight, but they are all jobs that someday may no longer exist. These industries post declining job markets that are under severe pressures to stay afloat in this persistent economic recession.
More important, these industries are not creating jobs that are sustainable once the economy rebounds into a decent recovery, because most of these industries are replaceable-either by cheaper labor, more advanced technologies, more useful capital, or more escalated competition in the marketplace.
Oliver McGee
Oliver McGee is former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of transportation (1999-2001) in the Clinton Administration, and former senior policy advisor inside the Clinton White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (1997-1999). McGee holds a Bachelors and Masters in civil engineering, a doctorate in aerospace engineering, a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, a Certificate of Professional Development in Business Administration and Finance from The Wharton School, including being a graduate of its prestigious Advanced Management Program (AMP36), and the Certificate of Fundraising Management from Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
I wish I could offer specific professions but what I can share with you is a roadmap for recognizing where this will happen. There are two fundamental dynamics in play that will influence market demand - globalization and the virtual operations. In Tom Friedman's book "That Used to Be Us', he shares that when asking leaders of the business world the most important trait of their personnel, there was one common theme. Businesses require people who can reengineer or change their current position. It is no longer adequate to simply master your profession because individuals today must be able to take their current job and position it for the next frontier. Professions may not be instinct but their modes of operations will change, sometimes radically.
I believe we will see this play out particularly in the field of higher education. There is a new American majority on campus, with three out of four of today's students managing some combination of families, jobs, and school. College had been traditionally a full-time experience at residential colleges with the majority of bills paid by parents but the emergence of distance learning has provided opportunities for students who otherwise would be locked out of the market. Professors will have to be fluent in the wealth of technologies available and those who are not will be obsolete. Though many students would prefer the traditional bricks and mortar class setting, the convenience offered by distance learning outweighs everything else. So what we will see is college professors who not only are masters in their field of study but also have the ability to deliver that content using a plethora of technologies and techniques. Then when we couple this market shift with a global supply base, professors will come from every region of the world. In fact, we will be able to access the world's finest professors without ever having to grace the door of a traditional campus.
Dr. Tom Pieplow
Athens State University
College of Business
Athens, Alabama
There are several occupations that the US Department of Labor forecasts to have absolute decline in job openings. This first group is predominately jobs where information technology is displacing data input and analysis. Totaling over one million jobs today the following are forecast to have an absolute decline in jobs available: data entry, answering services, desktop publishing, and printing press operators.
Two additional large job categories are forecast to have very low growth relative to the general economy. They are:
- Cashiers with 3,363,000 employed today
- US Department of Defense (DoD) with over 3,000,000 employees today
Additional information of career outlook is available in the book: Your Future is Calling
Michael E. Echols
- We expect that artificial intelligence and automation will continue to move up the skills ladder - and we're already seeing that. For example, after winning on Jeopardy IBM's Watson is being tested in a variety of work settings - for example, it's starting to help doctors make better diagnoses in pilot programs.
- So-called "e-discovery" tools are being used to automate what legions of skilled legal assistants and young lawyers used to do, which you've probably already seen a lot about.
Also most people agree that it's the soft skills and emotional intelligence that will be hardest to replicate with technology and automate…so being well rounded in that way will become more important.
- Healthcare > For example, just because Watson can help with a cancer diagnosis doesn't mean the patient and family won't need a whole team of doctors to help coordinate and administer care.
- Education > Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are already disrupting established educational and training models - but that doesn't mean that teachers will disappear. We'll still need them to mentor and guide students, provide encouragement and guidance, share their experience, etc. but MOOCs will probably mean that most teachers won't stand in the front of the room and lecture for hours on end anymore.
- Taxi drivers. You could conjecture that taxi drivers will get automated out of business by whatever Google's automated car becomes in 2020 and beyond.
- Call center. More and more interactions will be conducted with automated voice-guided systems - like talking to Siri. The most successful companies will be the ones who know when during various types of interactions a customer wants to talk to a person rather than a machine.
- Low level healthcare. The BLS estimates that home health care jobs are going to grow really fast in the next decade and beyond - and demographics (aging boomers) suggests that it true, but I'd guess that a lot of their duties will get outsourced to automated home health systems (medical devices and personal robots). This could mean make home health aides' work more about coordinating and managing care and offering companionship to help seniors stay engaged and happy. Japan is arguably the leader in experimenting with home robotics aimed at seniors.
- As I said above, it's unlikely that this job will disappear - but it will change.
Chris Carbone
Innovaro, Inc
