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Jobs That Might Disappear in the Next 25 Years

Jan 22, 2022

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Business

Sandeep Mathias

We’re set for some massive jobs and skills displacement over the coming years, thanks to the adoption of various technologies, particularly AI and automation. The World Economic Forum runs extensive research across the changing job requirements and skills demands of employers in order to determine where some of the major shifts will be. In 2020, they predict that 85 million jobs may be displaced by massive shifts in how labour is divided between humans and machines by 2025. But it’s not all doom and gloom. 

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Many of the jobs in this list will also become redefined as opposed to totally eradicated, with skills that can be transferable to other roles. Flexibility and a willingness to change careers will be an important attribute in the future job market. If you want to be totally bulletproof from the claws of progression, though, author and futurist Martin Ford recommends pursuing a career in industries that require creative and interpersonal skills, such as art, science, business and medicine. So far, computers cannot replicate true human inspiration and intellect, so these occupations seem safe (for now)!
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Overview
We’re set for some massive jobs and skills displacement over the coming years, thanks to the adoption
of various technologies, particularly AI and automation.
The World Economic Forum runs extensive research across the changing job requirements and skills
demands of employers in order to determine where some of the major shifts will be.
In 2020, they predict that 85 million jobs may be displaced by massive shifts in how labour is divided
between humans and machines by 2025.
But it’s not all doom and gloom.
Travel agent
comparison websites, anybody can arrange
their own holiday. All you need is your bank
card and a few spare hours to research your
destination, with the likes of Skyscanner,
Trivago and Opodo tailoring flight and hotel
searches to your exact price and date range.
Many travel operators have realised this and
are closing down branches to focus on their
online offers.
in the wider travel industry, though.
Cashier
advances in contactless payments, Apple Pay and
even cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin becoming
prominent within mainstream society. While not
everyone is on board, with some preferring to
still use cash to better track their spending, one
thing is for sure: the requirement for people to
handle the payments is no more. With self-
service tills and stations already a common site
in supermarket chains and even fast food
restaurants like McDonald’s, the demise of the
cashier seems inevitable.
Fast food cook
lower cost, automation could be imminent in
the future. Indeed, according to a 2013 study,
fast food workers face an 81% chance of
automation.
employers begin to use current technologies to
speed up processes and minimise operational
costs.
While there will still be the need for couriers to
deliver parcels, things don’t look good for the
traditional mail carriers delivering letters. This is
mainly because the things that they deliver won’t
exist in the next 20 years, with bills and statements
being viewed and paid online, junk mail moving from
your letterbox to your email inbox, and the writing
of letters long since a dying art. Despite this,
companies still frustratingly ask you for a utility bill
as proof of address, even though most utility
companies abandoned paper statements long ago!
Bank teller
local branches will. This is due to the convenience
and user-friendly nature of online and telephone
banking, where you can make transactions and
manage your account with ease – and all from the
comfort of your own home.
People will still need to consult with financial
advisors and experts, so banks will remain open;
there will just be a lot less of them.
Textile worker
textile industry isn’t due to the lack of demand
for products, but rather how they’re made. With
machines now able to perform a lot of the
manufacturing and production work, there are
fewer opportunities for textile workers.
On the upside, the move towards semi-
automation means that highly skilled specialist
operators will be required, albeit in smaller
numbers.
other ride-share drivers
technology to drive and apps to identify who
needs to be picked up and dropped off.
Payment will be made with a simple credit-card
swipe (as it often is today), and there will be no
one holding onto a steering wheel who needs
to be tipped.
pressure to introduce more technology into
the game, with goal-line technology now a
standard and the video assistant referee
(VAR) system being utilised in top European
leagues. This follows the example of other
sports such as tennis, cricket and rugby, which
have long since been using technology to
make real-time decisions during a match.
Retail jeweller
inclined to invest in expensive jewellery, which is
bad news for the industry. Considering that
current generations have less disposable
income, diamonds may not be on top of their
priority list.
support smaller businesses with ethical and
sustainable practices rather than established
luxury brands. Therefore, this could signal the
downfall of high-end jewellery brands as
millennial consumers shift their focus
elsewhere.
Telemarketer
course) will actually be pleased about this one,
or at least they would be if the annoying,
unwanted sales calls weren’t being replaced
with even more annoying automated sales
calls.
this new approach that negates hiring costs
and can engage potential customers at any
time of the day or night.
Legal secretary
include roles such as legal secretaries. Further
than that, a recent Deloitte report suggests
that over 114,000 legal jobs could be
automated in the next two decades as the
industry begins to adopt new technologies such
as cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
For legal secretaries, this technological
disruption could reduce the number of roles
available within the sector significantly, as
robotisation and digitalisation take over their
main tasks.
industries.
decline by 2028, resulting in the loss of some
203,300 jobs.
Deep-sea divers
exploring, researching, and providing manual
treatments on the ocean floors. This work can
be dangerous and takes a high level of skill to
do well. Increasingly, this area of labor and
expertise is leaning on the effort of robots and
drones
Librarians
but also about changing lifestyles. Books are
relatively cheap, plus people tend to use more and
more electronic readers or audiobooks these days.
Not to mention that people read less in general.
Don’t you worry—the libraries won’t just disappear
overnight with books burnt in a bonfire, but the
rental system will most likely become an online
solution.
Translators
It’s not that we will suddenly learn how to speak
different languages. It’s that the machines will do
it for us. Online translators are now able to
listen to and translate a conversation on the
spot, read it out loud, and swap between dozens
of language options. Soon, a human factor here
will no longer be needed.
Warehouse workers
warehousing people filling orders for online sites
like Amazon. Jeff Bezos has said multiple times in
interviews that he would love to keep the
warehouses completely automatic. They are
developing robots that could easily fill those
positions, and they could work 24/7, unlike their
human counterparts. Elon Musk is another one
who has been very open about this. He knows
that robots get complicated with simple tasks, so
his warehouses will never be 100 percent
human-free, but the type of job will be very
different than it is today.
Payroll-department employees
The advancement of payroll systems like Gusto
has made a significant impact on the demand for
these positions. Gusto recently received a $3.8
billion valuation, and while exact numbers aren’t
made public, they recently passed 100,000
paying businesses.
Pricing analysts
The AI will have machine learning so that it can
figure out the costs of our products and the
market trends. Right now, we have pricing
analysts doing this job manually with Excel
sheets. The turnover is extremely high for these
positions.
automotive industry, and this is just the
beginning. The industry as a whole is moving
toward all-electric and self-driving vehicles.
Mechanics are going to be more like computer
scientists. It’ll be more like working on a
computer than working on a car.
Air-traffic controllers
impact on the job market, but we think where
it will hit the hardest are in industries or
specific roles where the risk of human error is
not only greater, but the consequences from
said errors have a more catastrophic impact.
People assume we're talking about air-traffic
controllers and things like that. However, there
are still technological constraints that will
enable humans to keep that type of role.
Commercial painters
For the past five years, we’ve had a hard time
finding any apprentices or youthful people
interested in painting. Our workforce has been
getting older, and our competitors are
experiencing the same problems. One
contribution to this is a lack of interest in
commercial painting. But another contribution is
maintenance-free surfaces. New technologies in
material sciences are creating walls, ceilings, and
floors that don’t require any coatings. So not only
is there less interest from younger people to
become commercial painters, but there is also
less demand due to these new materials being
used to construct new buildings.
Conclusion
Many of the jobs in this list will also become redefined as opposed to totally eradicated, with skills that
can be transferable to other roles. Flexibility and a willingness to change careers will be an important
attribute in the future job market.
If you want to be totally bulletproof from the claws of progression, though, author and futurist Martin
Ford recommends pursuing a career in industries that require creative and interpersonal skills, such as
art, science, business and medicine. So far, computers cannot replicate true human inspiration and
intellect, so these occupations seem safe (for now)!