Robots Expected To Create Increasing Competition For Low-Skill Jobs - Popular Science

Robots Expected To Create Increasing Competition For Low-Skill Jobs. Popular Science (10/15, Boyle) reported, "When it comes to loss of American jobs, robots are to blame." This is according to "economists who have studied labor statistics and increasing job polarization, a growing disparity in pay among low- and high-skilled jobs." MIT economist David Autor and David Dorn of the Center for Monetary and Financial Studies in Madrid found "that certain occupations that consist of routine tasks are more vulnerable to automation." In an article for Good magazine, Autor said "The middle class is disappearing in large part because technology is rendering middle-class skills obsolete." Notably, "secretaries, bank tellers and other clerks perform work that is highly routine, and thus vulnerable to automation and the loss of laborers." The findings, along with those from similar studies, "raise some interesting questions about the economy." However, experts add, automation of these more complicated tasks is "probably a long way off."
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