The robots are coming for your jobs — and Oregon, Louisiana, Texas have most to lose

The robots are coming for your jobs — and workers in Oregon, Louisiana and Texas have the most to fear.

So says the latest report detailing the spread of robots in the U.S. and economies around the world.

Oxford Economics said greater use of robots will eliminate up to 20 million manufacturing jobs around the world in the next decade. Lots of service-oriented jobs largely immune from automation in the past could also be taken up by machines.

Yet the rise of robots will create just as many — if not more — opportunities as it extinguishes, according to the report. Oxford contends the robot revolution will deliver a $5 trillion increase in global wealth that ends up creating millions of new jobs.

“Our study shows that the current wave of robotization ultimately boosts productivity and economic growth, generating new employment opportunities at a pace comparable with the rate of job destruction,” said Gary Duncan, Oxford’s director of communications.

Read: The rise of the robots and decline of inflation: How AI is keeping prices low

Politicians, for their part, will face a big dilemma. Robots will not only generate more growth, but also more inequality.

“Lower-skilled regions, which tend to have weaker economies and already-high unemployment rates, are much more vulnerable to the loss of jobs due to robots,” the report said.

Read: Here’s what robots destroy when they compete with humans

Trying to limit the use of robots is not the answer, though. Countries that do so will simply fall behind the countries that don’t. Oxford Economics said the focus of policy-makers “should be to use the robotics dividend to help those in vulnerable regions ready themselves for the major upheaval ahead.”

Why is the adoption of robots soaring? Oxford cited rapid innovation in artificial intelligence, machine learning and engineering. Increasingly robots are becoming cheaper than humans, especially as labor costs rise in major economies.

The U.S. has already lost about 260,000 jobs since 2000 to robots or related technology, a number that’s likely to increase sharply in the next decade, Oxford estimates.

Using its research to create a so-called robot vulnerability index, Oxford said Oregon and Louisiana are likely to lose the most jobs to robots, followed by Texas, Indiana and North Carolina.

Read: 10 jobs robots already do better than you

The least susceptible states are Hawaii, Nevada, Florida and Vermont, which have little manufacturing and are more reliant on services such as tourism that require more of a human touch.

“Jobs in less structured environments and which demand compassion, creativity or social intelligence are likely to be carried out by humans for decades to come,” the report said.

Source: Marketwatch.com

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