Robots May Put 20 Million People Out Of Jobs By 2030 & Govts Need A Plan To Save Workers

Thanks to both robotics and AI research, machines are getting better at their jobs everyday, and even learning to do new ones. That's great for the economy and the advancement of humanity in general. Not so much for the people they'll put out of work though.

According to new research by Oxford Economics, robots will displace 8.5 percent of manufacturing jobs around the world over the next decade.

Images courtesy: Reuters

Basically, around 20 million people factory workers and people in similar workplaces will lose their jobs by 2030.

The research does say that, because robots take over more menial tasks, it opens up new jobs for the workforce. The problem is, upscaling to a new profession isn't exactly easy, especially since technical support required by these robots involves skilled labour. That's usually expensive to train in.

Because of this, though there'll be newer jobs created as fast as old ones are made redundant, it'll also create an income disparity.

Oxford Economics says that every new robot installed displaces 1.6 manufacturing workers on average. It's not a new trend; the global automotive industry has used 43 percent robots since 2016.

The problem lies in the fact that robots are now so much cheaper than human workers. The report indicates the average unit price per robot has dropped 11 percent between 2011 and 2016. On top of that, they can also perform much more sophisticated tasks than before, and demand for them is increasing.

China for instance already accounts for 20 percent of the entire world's industrial robots., with ever third new one being installed there. By 2030, those Chinese robots could number over 14 million.

Income inequality

So what's the problem? Well, though these bots will boost productivity and economic growth, it's the displaced people will suffer. "This great displacement will not be evenly distributed around the world, or within countries," the report reads. "Our research shows that the negative effects of robotization are disproportionately felt in the lower-income regions compared with higher-income regions of the same country."

Workers with jobs that support these robots, like robotics, AI research, coding, mechanical engineering, and the like are all concentrated in cities. And those are the skills hard to automate at the moment. On the other hand manufacturing plants usually situated away from urban centres, and thus employing mostly rural populations, will be harder hit.

Poorer regions are expected to lose the most jobs and will benefit the least from the new ones created thanks to a skill gap. So cities and city folk will get richer, while everyone else will get even poorer.

That's why governments need to consider how to address this issue, and aid the people that will be out in the street thanks to robots. They need a backup plan, and fast.