Study says 850,000 UK public sector jobs could be automated by 2030
I am increasingly sure that a big part of the solution to tackling the challenges of living in rural England for the older and vulnerable elements of the population lies in a technological revolution. This article is one step along my conviction that this is the case. It tells us:
More than 850,000 public sector jobs could be lost by 2030 through automation, according to a study that comes as a further blow after hundreds of thousands of jobs disappeared following the government’s austerity cuts.
The research conducted by Oxford University and Deloitte, the business advisory firm, found that the 1.3m administrative jobs across the public sector had the highest chance of being automated.
But even teachers, police officers and social workers could be replaced, at least in part, allowing the government to either free up more staff for frontline work or reduce the number of workers on the payroll.
The research is included in Deloitte’s state of the state report, which analyses the state of public finances and the challenges facing public services.
Deloitte’s previous work has shown that all sectors will be affected by automation in the next two decades, with 74% of jobs in transportation and storage, 59% in wholesale and retail trades and 56% in manufacturing having a high chance of being automated.
However, in contrast to the doomsayers who predict mass unemployment, the firm has argued that over the last 140 years automation has created more work than it destroyed.