Researchers Study Workers’ Skills, Value to Predict Professions that Could be at Risk
12/06/2018
Contact: Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944, Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu or Christine Gillette, 978-934-2209, Christine_Gillette@uml.edu
LOWELL, Mass. – From self-serve kiosks at restaurants to doorbells that double as a home security service, automation, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things are disrupting industries and replacing people at their jobs like never before.
Researchers in UMass Lowell’s Manning School of Business determined to find out which jobs are jeopardy have devised a system they believe predicts which professions hold up and which may not survive in the future.
Leading the study were UMass Lowell management professors Scott Latham, who focuses on how technology affects organizations and industries, and Beth Humberd, an authority on the impact of job disruption on individual workers. Together, they examined the skills required to perform 50 types of jobs and the value each delivered, both for employers and to customers.
“The idea of value allowed us to show that there are different ways that jobs are going to evolve and it may not be in the way you think,” Humberd said. “It’s not just low-skilled workers who are going to be displaced and professional workers who are fine. A plumber might outlast a doctor.”
Jobs evaluated included everything from plumber to accountant to toll-taker. Then, the researchers created a system that helps workers assess the threat level posed by automation.
The professions identified fall into what Latham and Humberd call four “paths of evolution.” They are “displaced” (the most in danger), “disrupted,” “deconstructed” or “durable” (the safest).
Within this framework, jobs as real estate agents, for instance, fall into the “disrupted” category because while some of the roles of agents are being taken over by websites and mobile apps, these professionals still provide value through the more nuanced work of advising clients. A pharmacist’s job, meanwhile, is considered “displaced” (high threat to value and skill) because the work can be easily standardized and made routine. Work as a photographer is “deconstructed” (high threat to value, low threat to skill) because while the skills needed to perform the job remain safe, the way the job’s value is delivered is shifting. Lastly, a job as a physician’s assistant is “durable” (low threat to value and skill), because the skills and their value are too difficult or too costly to automate.
Humberd and Latham believe their system is a better way to evaluate jobs’ worth both now and in the future.
“I am fascinated by the panic around robots. If you read the news, it feels like a robot will knock on your door, pull you out of your house, beat you up and steal your job. Change doesn’t happen like that,” Latham said.
The team’s findings, “Four Ways Jobs Will Respond to Automation,” have been published in the MIT Sloan Management Review. They plan to follow up with more research.
“We’ve found that there’s some interesting stuff that people are not talking much about at that intersection of broader technological disruption and the ways in which individuals identify with their work,” Humberd said.
Latham, too, believes there is much to examine when it comes to automation.
“There’s too much hysteria when we talk about the future of work,” he said, adding that while the automation of some tasks will be unavoidable, people may often prefer the human touch. “It could come to a point where the automated stations you see at fast-food restaurants, in five years, people could say, ‘This stinks. I want a person.’”
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