In my job as a business analyst, I work on the robotization of business processes. We often get the question: are you destroying human jobs by robotization? Although it is true that one of the main objectives of robotization, and digitization in general, is increased efficiency, and robots do substitute some jobs, ultimately they will lead to increased added value for both the demand side as well as the supply side of the job market.
Firstly, robots are likely to replace highly repetitive and logic-based tasks, which does lead to job loss in the lower end of the market (2). For one, this is beneficial to the employer (demand side of the labor market), because of the gained efficiencies and elimination of human error. Secondly, this may be beneficial to employees: as a result of their repetitive tasks being replaced, they are likely to focus on more value-adding tasks, requiring interpretation instead of repetitive logic-based operations, which is likely to improve employee satisfaction. However, of course there will be some jobs that become obsolete as a result of robotization.
Although this downside of robotization is certainly existent, both the history and future predictions tell us that automation also creates job opportunities. These predictions show this will completely offset the job loss as a result of robotization, even resulting in more newly available jobs (2). Besides the positive offset to the quantity of jobs, job value (both monetary – salary, and job satisfaction level) will also increase as a result of this. Because low-level jobs disappear and are replaced by roles with increased expectations and complexity, entry-level job seekers will be more likely to be wanted for those jobs that would have been out of reach in a world without automation. Examples of jobs with increasing demand are data analysts, for which the demand has increased by 650% in the period between 2013 and 2017 (3), marketing specialists, system engineers, and – of course – process automation specialists (2).
To conclude, robotization does not only lead to gains in efficiency and non-monetary benefits such as increased employee satisfaction, but it also creates new jobs. These new jobs are higher valued than the originally substituted jobs, thus robotization does not only provide benefits to the welfare in general (the society) and the employers but also creates long-term value to job-seekers.
References
(1) Brown, T. (2016) Will robots actually take your job? (retrieved from https://www.raconteur.net/will-robots-actually-take-your-job/) (image source)
(1) World Economic Forum (2020) Future of Jobs Report 2020 (retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020/)
(2) LinkedIn (2017) Here Are the 20 Fastest-Growing Jobs in the US (retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-strategy/fastest-growing-jobs-in-the-us)
Thank you Nino for sharing this interesting post about robotization! What struck me the most is the fact that when robotization is discussed in the news, the main focus is on the substitution of human jobs and the benefits that it causes for the demand side of the job market. However, as you mentioned, robotization can offset the caused job loss and may result in additional job benefits. So what is often described as an evil plan to replace workers, can cause them multiple advantages.
Nevertheless, while the current developments can cause many benefits for both the demand and supply side of the job market, I wonder if the robotization technology will be further developed to a point where besides the lower end jobs, more technical tasks could be replaced with robots. I believe that if that might happen, it will immensely difficult to offset the jobs that are lost.