The Federal Department of Industry has released the inaugural Australia Industry Report, a unique insight into the two million businesses which make up Australian industry.
Chief economist Mark Cully says Australia’s economic adaptability and resilience have underpinned more than two decades of continuous economic growth and a huge improvement in living standards.
One of the sections of the report forecasts which jobs will become obsolete with more automation, or the increasing use of robots.
Take a look at the chart below:
Jobs identified as having highly automatable tasks, such as secretaries and butchers, fell on average by 0.9% a year between 1993–94 and 2013–14.
“The challenges presented by increasing automation are not limited to low-skilled positions,” the report says.
“Indeed, it was the skilled artisan weavers who were replaced in the wake of the Industrial Revolution.”
One of the at-risk jobs identified in the study are pharmacists: 78.6% of pharmacists in Australia have a bachelor’s degree and 15.4% have post graduate qualifications.
“A tertiary education therefore does not guarantee safeguard against automation,” the report says.
“Robots are increasingly replicating the tasks of medium and high-skilled workers. Computers are programmed to diagnose illnesses faster than doctors, machines can analyse volumes of legal text in a fraction of the time that a solicitor can and a robot has even been appointed as director to an investment board.”
In Australia, high-skilled jobs not at risk of automation, such as surgeons, secondary school teachers and electrical engineers, are projected to grow on average by 4.5% a year, twice the projected growth rate of 2.2% per year of high-skilled jobs in general.
Now look at this chart which shows the jobs which don’t require tertiary education and are least likely to be replaced by robots:
