A year ago when I talked to truck drivers they said ‘there’s no way a robot could do my job.’ This year they say, ‘We need to make robot trucks illegal’.
Andrew Yang – U.S. Presidential Candidate

The fear of massive job losses started about six years ago when University of Oxford released a report of job losses due to automation. The University reported 47% of current U.S. jobs are at risk of being impacted by or totally displaced by automation and artificial intelligence in 20 years or less.(1)

In the latest Oxford report, the numbers got worse – 80% of jobs in retail, transportation warehousing, and logistics are at risk and 63% of sales jobs were at risk pre-COVID. And by the way, the job losses and changes now will happen in 5 to 10 years or even less time because of COVID. But there’s a positive side, Tech Futures will also create work and jobs:

Work Lesson Earned: The automation of work is a global challenge. Millennial and Gen Z generations believed their economic and work futures were guaranteed with any college education. The global challenge is there are not enough high paying jobs for people and specifically recent college graduates.

(1) ‘New Report Warns 80% of Retail Jobs At Risk From Automation’, Oxford Martin School September 1, 2017.
(2) ‘Jobs of Tomorrow’, International Monetary Fund, Winter 2020.