The BLS Thinks These Jobs Will Grow a Lot. I Think They’re Wrong.

In a post at The Atlantic, Jordan Weissmann draws a couple interesting graphs using data from the BLS’s recently-released projections of job growth to 2020. Weissmann concentrates on those jobs that require only a high-school diploma or less, and points out the surprising stat that 63% of all US jobs created (12.8 million total) will be in this category. Here are the ones the BLS thinks will grow most, arranged in descending order of volume:

My first question when I look at this graph is not ‘what do these jobs pay?’ but instead ‘which of these will be deeply affected by automation and other kinds of technological progress — more deeply than the BLS is currently thinking?’ This of course is an impossible question to answer precisely, but after spending some time looking at the BLS’s projections methodology and its factors affecting occupational utilization, I think it’s likely underestimating the broad impact of technology.

The BLS is certainly not alone in this. As we wrote in Race Against the Machine, the pace and scope of digital progress is so quick it’s catching a lot of us by surprise. I certainly wasn’t expecting self-driving cars and Jeopardy! champion supercomputers any time soon, yet here they are…

via The BLS Thinks These Jobs Will Grow a Lot. I Think They’re Wrong..