Job

Abstract

We examine how susceptible jobs are to computerization. To as-sass this, we begin by implementing a novel methodology to estimate the probability of computerization for 702 detailed occupations, using a Gaussian process classifier. Based on these estimates, we examine ex-pelted impacts of future computerization on US labour market outcomes, with the primary objective of analyzing the number of jobs at risk and the relationship between an occupation’s probability of computerization, wages and educational attainment. According to our estimates, about 47 percent of total US employment is at risk. We further provide evidence that wages and educational attainment exhibit a strong negative relation-ship with an occupation’s probability of computerization.

I. I

INTRODUCTION

In this paper, we address the question: how susceptible are jobs to computerization? Doing so, we build on the existing literature in two ways. First, drawing upon recent advances in Machine Learning (ML) and Mobile Robotics (MR),we develop a novel methodology to categories occupations according to their susceptibility to computerization.1 Second, we implement this methodology to estimate the probability of computerization for 702 detailed occupations, and examine expected impacts of future computerization on US labour market out-comes. Our paper is motivated by John Maynard Keynes’s frequently cited prediction of widespread technological unemployment “due to our discovery of means of economizing the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find nexuses for labour” (Keynes, 1933, p. 3). Indeed, over the past decades, computers have substituted for a number of jobs, including the function ns of bookkeepers, cashiers and telephone operators (Bresnahan, 1999; MGI, 2013). More recently, the poor performance of labour markets across advanced economies has intensified the debate about technological unemployment among economists. While there is ongoing disagreement about the driving forces behind the persistently high unemployment rates, a number of scholars have pointed at computer-controlled equipment as a possible explanation for recent jobless growth (see,for example, Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2011).The impact of computerization on labour market outcomes is well-established in the literature, documenting the decline of employment in routine intensive occupations –i.e. occupations mainly consisting of tasks following well-defined procedures that can easily be performed by sophisticated algorithms. For exam-pl, studies by Charles, et al.(2013) and Jaimovich and Siu (2012) emphasize that the ongoing decline in manufacturing employment and the disappearance of other routine jobs is causing the current low rates of employment.