As technology advances, a number of jobs will become obsolete as they either become irrelevant to current realities or their functions are usurped by robots and other artificial intelligence (AI)-generated systems, data from research have shown.

A McKinsey Global Institute study found that by 2030, almost a third of jobs worldwide could be taken over by automation, bringing about a massive change in the workplace. Experts have said that the displacement of jobs, which are not limited to factory work or those in technology, will also creep into other industries such as health care, retail, and even the creative industries, some of which are already feeling the impact.

As the use of AI becomes more prevalent, job seekers are urged to begin to look at opportunities in the technology industry as they also equip themselves with skills that are harder to automate, or even begin to consider new career choices that are less likely to become extinct amid technological shifts.

As highlighted by the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023, some 69 million jobs will be created in the next five years, driven by new technologies and the green transition. These, the study said, will also be counterbalanced by another 83 million jobs which will also be put at risk due to economic pressures and automation.

“This means one-quarter of today’s jobs will be disrupted in the next five years,” the report noted.

Experts say that a growing number of jobs globally, which have already made their way onto the extinction list or are now on the verge of doing so, include travel agents, switchboard operators, bank tellers, meter readers, data entry clerks, pre-press technicians, fast-food workers, customer service representatives, referees, telemarketers, farm workers, translators, librarians, accounting/book-keeping, proof readers, textile workers, and toll booth operators.

With much of these severely threatened by the invasion of new technology, their roles and functions have also become less effective as the integration of machines and electronic assistance proves to be more cost effective and conservative. In some jurisdictions, many of these positions have already been greatly, if not fully, replaced by AI.

Take, for instance, librarians; the growth of digital libraries, use of kindles, and AI-managed catalogue systems used in more advanced countries have already made the need to visit a physical library less necessary. In keeping with the global sustainability push, the need to preserve more trees and to have paperless societies also presents itself as another of those factors fuelling this push. Similarly, for other occupations such as referees, the use of video-assisted technologies, now heavily used during most major football competitions, also comes as another which has been gaining wide acceptance, making human error in officiating less tolerable to fans and teams alike who value playback features and the ability to draw their own conclusions about a game.

In more advance countries where technology is used to power various aspects of the economy, jobs which locally we would never envision as becoming redundant, such as that of a taxi driver, have likewise already been placed on the chopping block as more and more ride-sharing apps and the rise of self-driving cars become real threats.

“Industry trends suggest that many of these jobs could vanish by 2030 due to advanced autonomous vehicle technology. Some larger cities are already testing the concept. Over time, more places will likely adopt it as well,” British career advice platform CareerAddict noted.

Job industry experts, in urging workers in these fields to pivot, said that now may also be a good time for them to think about upskilling as they venture into other fields that are less susceptible to automation. They further warn that, as per the changing nature of work, companies of the future should also begin to ensure that job security requires a mix of adaptability, tech-savvy, and skills that AI can’t replicate easily.

A study by the McKinsey Global Institute has indicated that by 2030 “at least 14 per cent of employees globally could need to change their careers due to digitisation, robotics, and AI advancements”.

Forbes magazine, in further referencing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University report, also indicated that AI will replace as many as two million manufacturing workers by 2025.

The latter, already starting to take root locally, earlier this year saw large producer National Baking Company indicating that it will, for the first time, incorporate the use of robotics in its business, with the aim of reducing laborious, repetitive processes.

Speaking at the launch of the company’s state-of-the-art bread plant being built in Catherine Hall, Montego Bay, back in January, the company’s chairman and managing director Gary “Butch” Hendrickson, said that the use of robots in the plant will help to enhance production efficiencies, as it allows the business to better meet growing demand for its products in local and international markets.

“We’ll incorporate the use of robotics for the first time in our businesses and these will go into our repetitive processes that human beings just can’t do anymore. This will allow our management to focus on quality, plant efficiency and, most important, the well-being of our team,” Hendrickson said.

The 120,000 square-foot plant, timed for completion in 2025, will be built at a capacity to produce over 3,600 loaves per day, further allowing the baked products manufacturer to push the export of products to new markets in the US. The facility will create employment for at least 75 highly skilled Jamaicans initially.

President of the Human Resource Management Association of Jamaica (HRMAJ) Dr Cassida Jones Johnson, in pointing to the gradual shifts taking place globally, urged Jamaicans to wake up and begin to take steps in getting ready for the increasing changes.

“We don’t have to wait on the developed countries to tell us what’s been happening. I think we have enough intellect and innovation in Jamaica to start the conversations, combined with public and private sector involvement,” she told the Jamaica Observer recently.

“As an immediate action, I believe we need to conduct some free workshops or even host more conferences, which will be open to the public, so that we can offer more sensitisation to our people and make them more aware about how much the world is changing and how as a country we should be positioning in light of this,” she said.

Underscoring the continued importance of leadership roles in any era, the HRMAJ head shared similar sentiments with career analysts who, in various studies, have pointed to jobs for medical personnel, teachers, psychologists, human resource management, and other leadership roles, among those which may not be so easy to replace.

“We will always need the human touch — that can’t be replaced — as well as human motivation. Since AI doesn’t have emotions, these roles will continue to have a competitive edge, as they can connect with people on a level at which machines can’t,” the HR professional said.

She said that while the HRMAJ shares the view that AI will definitely transform the way products and services are delivered by workers and consumed by people in the various sectors, its impact on people and jobs may need to be considered in a way that ensures that the legal and policy approaches protect values, human touch points and ethics. For these reasons she called for an all hands on deck approach. One which sees stakeholders working together to create an environment where technology and people can co-exist in order to have a competitive advantage on the world stage.

“HR has the responsibility to identify that ‘in-house’ talent pool in their respective sector who can work with AI, while government policymakers and employers should [facilitate] a meeting of the minds concerning the changing landscape, as the lack of AI skills could also hold back the society as well as organisations,” Jones Johnson said.

The transitioning of jobs, which is not a new phenomenon, dates as far back as medieval times when a number of jobs, such as ale-wife (a female maker and seller of ale in the village), pinder (stray animal catcher), blacksmith, and chamberlain, became obsolete after new systems emerged which ushered in the start of commercialised brewing, fencing, and the use of sewers during the early phases of the industrial revolution.

The industrial revolution, which began in Great Britain during the mid-18th to early 19th centuries, emerged as a successor to the agrarian revolution, bringing about the use of more advance machinery and manufacturing processes.

With the world now said to be in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution or industry 4.0, labour markets and economies alike are expected to witness further shifts as rapid technological advancement characterises the latter part of the 21st century. This, as the revolution goes further in digitising the manufacturing sector.

The changing era which is already fast unfolding in a number of countries across the globe, experts say, is being driven by disruptive trends, including the rise of data and connectivity, analytics, human-machine interaction, and improvements in robotics.

As part of the industrial change, the world has already started to see the joining of technologies like AI, gene editing, and advanced robotics, some of which often blur the lines between the physical, digital, and biological worlds. These innovations, in representing a transformative shift from the digital age of the late 1990s and early 2000s, have also moved towards an era of embedded connectivity distinguished by the ubiquity of technology in society.

“To thrive in the fourth industrial revolution, companies must ensure that their workers are properly equipped through upskilling and reskilling and then hire new people when necessary. Upskilling means that employees will need to learn new skills to help them in their current positions as the skills they need evolve. Reskilling, on the other hand, which could pose a real challenge, may, however, require for workers to be retrained with new skills that will enable them to fill different positions within their companies,” the McKinsey report said.