There was a time when the thought of robots doing ordinary jobs seemed far fetched, but the reality could be closer than you think.
This is according to Bank of England governor Mark Carney, who has recently gone on record to state that he believes 15 million jobs will be lost in the future, which of course, includes some of the jobs currently filled by umbrella contractors.
Is this really a true statement though, or is it simply designed to get headlines and attention? In my opinion a bit of both, because while we are definitely going to be seeing robots and computers doing more and more jobs (we are already seeing it), I think that 15 million jobs might be a bit exaggerated
Ultimately though, who really knows? I can only give my opinion, and I could very well end up being proved wrong by the Bank of England governor and his recent predictions.
So what are some of the jobs most at risk? Apparently telemarketers are right at the top of the list, with professions such as mathematical technicians, watch repairers, cargo agents and accounts clerks following closely behind.
There are many other professions included on the list, such as drivers, machine operators, credit analysts, cashiers, IT workers, office workers, and secretaries, to name but a few.
I’m sure that contractors in these professions are not particularly concerned by what experts are saying, and I don’t think they are going to suddenly find themselves unable to get work, but it certainly is something worth thinking about.
Interestingly, the report went on to say that people working in creative industries such as photography and fashion design were the least likely to be affected by robots. Good news for contractors who work in these kind of fields then.
This all comes at a time when retail giant Amazon have opened a new grocery store in America that does not have any cashiers at all. Here in the UK supermarkets do have some self service checkouts of course, but on the whole we are still being served by actual humans.
In this new Amazon store, they are using sensors to detect what is being picked off the shelves by customers, who are then charged accordingly direct to their Amazon account. In other words, they don’t even have to stand in line and wait to be checked out.
If you are to take anything away from this story it’s…the robots are coming for your jobs contractors, eventually.
