Around the world, Americans are the least concerned that robots and computers will take their jobs.
In each country, a large majority of citizens said they believe automation will make it difficult for ordinary people to find jobs, while a majority in most countries said jobs lost to automation would not be replaced by “new, better paying jobs.”There were only three countries in which a majority thought automation would make the countries' economies more efficient — Japan (74 percent), Poland (52 percent) and Hungary (52 percent).
In every country surveyed, a significant majority believed automation would worsen the existing inequality between the rich and the poor.
Despite these concerns, the general sense is that automation is inevitable. It is already happening in many countries, as Chinese e-commerce giant employs just four people at one facility where 200,000 boxes are packed every day, with the rest done by robots. Pew’s report noted manufacturing robots could cost as little as $4 an hour to operate, compared with an average hourly cost of $36 for a human worker in the United States.
So how should workers prepare for this future?
With the exception of the United States, a majority in each country said the government had a responsibility to help workers acquire the right skills to adapt.
Many surveyed also said schools, employers and the individuals themselves have a responsibility to prepare for the changes — though Japan was an outlier, with respondents clearly viewing the government as obliged to assume more of the responsibility. |
