Every study we could find on what automation will do to jobs, in one chart

There are about as many opinions as there are experts.

Erin Winickarchive page

January 25, 2018

clement127 | flickr

You’ve seen the headlines: “Robots Will Destroy Our Jobs—and We’re Not Ready for It.” “You Will Lose Your Job to a Robot—and Sooner Than You Think.” “Robots May Steal as Many as 800 Million Jobs in the Next 13 Years.”

Such stories are tempting to take at face value. Who wouldn’t want to know if their livelihood, or that of their children, will soon be in jeopardy?

Here’s the problem: the findings cited emanate from a wide array of studies released by companies, think tanks, and research institutions. And their prognostications are all over the map. They’re coming so fast and thick, in fact, that we here at MIT Technology Review decided to start keeping tabs on all the numbers different groups have come up with about predicted job losses (and some gains) at the hands of automation, robots, and AI.

Predicted Jobs Automation Will Create and Destroy

When	Where	Jobs Destroyed	Jobs Created	Predictor
2016	worldwide		900,000 to 1,500,000	Metra Martech
2018	US jobs	13,852,530*	3,078,340*	Forrester
2020	worldwide		1,000,000-2,000,000	Metra Martech
2020	worldwide	1,800,000	2,300,000	Gartner
2020	sampling of 15 countries	7,100,000	2,000,000	World Economic Forum (WEF)
2021	worldwide		1,900,000-3,500,000	The International Federation of Robotics
2021	US jobs	9,108,900*		Forrester
2022	worldwide	1,000,000,000		Thomas Frey
2025	US jobs	24,186,240*	13,604,760*	Forrester
2025	US jobs	3,400,000		ScienceAlert
2027	US jobs	24,700,000	14,900,000	Forrester
2030	worldwide	2,000,000,000		Thomas Frey
2030	worldwide	400,000,000-800,000,000	555,000,000-890,000,000	McKinsey
2030	US jobs	58,164,320*		PWC
2035	US jobs	80,000,000		Bank of England
2035	UK jobs	15,000,000		Bank of England
No Date	US jobs	13,594,320*		OECD
No Date	UK jobs	13,700,000		IPPR

As you can see, no one agrees. Predictions range from optimistic to devastating, differing by tens of millions of jobs even when comparing similar time frames. We also found numerous predictions focused on losses in one industry, and many that were the result of a single technology, like autonomous vehicles.

Of course, not all statistics are created equal. The most commonly cited numbers are from three places: a 2013 Oxford study (not listed in the table) that said 47 percent of US jobs are at high risk of automation in the next few decades, an OECD study suggesting that 9 percent of jobs in the organization’s 21 member countries are automatable, and a McKinsey report from last year that said 400 million to 800 million jobs worldwide could be automated by 2030.

In short, although these predictions are made by dozens of global experts in economics and technology, no one seems to be on the same page. There is really only one meaningful conclusion: we have no idea how many jobs will actually be lost to the march of technological progress.

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Update: The table footnote was clarified to indicate some of the job numbers were extrapolations by MIT Technology Review based on percentages listed in the reports. The 2013 Oxford study was removed from the table at the authors' request because it doesn't give a specific job loss figure or timescale.