New data reveals 12m European jobs could be lost to automation by 2040
Research firm Forrester has forecasted that 12 million jobs will be lost to automation across Europe by 2040, with 34 per cent of European jobs at risk.
According to Forrester’s Future of Jobs Forecast, workers with little bargaining power are most at risk of displacement, especially in countries where many are subject to casual employment contracts, including zero-hour contracts in the UK, which require no guaranteed working hours, or part-time jobs with low wages, such as “mini-jobs” in Germany.
Job losses to automation will subsequently impact European workers in wholesale, retail, transport, accommodation, food services, and leisure and hospitality on a bigger scale. Green energy and automation, however, will create nine million new jobs in Europe by 2040, specifically in clean energy, clean buildings, and smart cities.
Routine jobs make up 38 per cent of the workforce in Germany, 34 per cent of the workforce in France, and 31 per cent of the workforce in the UK.
As a result, Forrester predict that European organisations will invest in low-carbon jobs and build employees’ skill sets. Soft skills such as active learning, resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility — something robots aren’t known for — will complement worker automation tasks and become more desirable.
“Lost productivity due to COVID-19 is forcing companies globally to automate manual processes and improve remote work,” said Michael O’Grady, principal forecast analyst at Forrester.
“The pandemic is just one factor that will shape the future of work in Europe over the next two decades, however. European organisations are also in a particularly strong position to embrace automation because of Europe’s declining working-age population and the high number of routine low-skilled jobs that can be easily automated.”
“Automation will subsequently become integral to how European governments and employers look at their competitiveness and manage their older demographic.”