When was the last time you made a job hunt? Making a resume, searching in the job sites, applying for the most suitable job, and waiting for a call from the company. After completing my graduation this was my routine for almost a year. Even if we couldn’t get our dream job, we somehow manage to get a job.

Eventually, the job we get becomes our identity. But do we ever thought the job we are working on now is future proof? Whether we will be able to get our daily bread through our current job during our old age?

Carl Benedikt Frey & Michael Osborne from the University of Oxford made a complete paper on the jobs that are going to disappear in the next few years. This study was made four or five years back. When you combine their study with the current day scenarios, the following are the jobs that are going to vanish in few years of time, or at least it evolves and will exist in different forms. You can’t draw a clear time frame like in 2020 or 2030 to decide when these jobs will disappear; based on the scenarios it varies. Let us get on to the disappearing jobs list.

Office and Administrative Support

Job responsibilities of office administration and support vary from office to office. Jobs included in modern office will be typing, managing important files and checks.

But if the major part of your job is to operate office equipment like fax, printers and copiers, then you are at risk. Most of these jobs are automated now. Wireless technology have evolved a lot, you can print entire documents with a single tap from your computer/ smartphone and the printer at the end of the room prints it via Bluetooth. And moreover, nowadays everyone knows how to handle the computer. Operating office machines are no more a skilled job.

Next Move

The office administrative support is not going to disappear, but going to exist in different form. Your job role will extend a lot in the future and you may have to gain the knowledge of using modern software to manage your works.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, office assistants and secretaries are increasingly required to continue their education or take courses in technology as new advancements and office procedures evolve.

The best alternative way to sustain in this job is to continue updating your technical skills and software knowledge. The most important reason why most of the jobs in this list are in danger is due to the modern software and automation technologies. Keeping yourself updated with the modern software in your industry will help you get a better grip in holding your job.

Delivery and Store Attenders

The main reason why this sector work people are at risk is mainly because of Amazon’s futuristic view. Amazon has lots of projects going on to make online shopping as simple as possible. Amazon Go and Amazon prime air are some of the few futuristic projects that are almost at the mature stage.

Recently Amazon Go launched in Seattle, from a concept to a real working store. You can see lots of tech Youtubers covering exclusive videos for you. It is mature enough but still it misses two or three items in the list, but eventually the machine will learn.

The Amazon Prime Air is still in development stage, but the sources says it has developed a lot form its first flight. Amazon is trying different types of drone models to accomplish the task. The only problem they are facing is natural hindrance like snow and rain. But with more test flights and data collected through the test flights, the system will get smarter.

Next Move

To be frank the delivery people are at more risk than the store attenders. To make a full autonomous shop it takes a lot of money than hiring a store attender. Big guns will surely adopt modern technologies but the small stores will keep the store attenders till the autonomous software and equipment become cheaper.

You have some time to breathe, but still, you have to equip yourself with better knowledge to retain your job. Since software is the key role, improving your skills in the software and electronics will keep you safe.

Coming to delivery people. The technology may seem to be not yet complete on the screen, but the technology improvements have evolved tremendously behind the screen. Tesla and SpaceX are live examples for you. The delivery drones are few step away from the full working conditions, few more complex data and algorithm can fix this.

We are currently permitted to operate during daylight hours when there are low winds and good visibility, but not in rain, snow or icy conditions. Once we’ve gathered data to improve the safety and reliability of our systems and operations, we will expand the envelope.

The only major problem for the drones is the weight and the distance. With the current technology products under five pounds and in a five-mile radius can be delivered. Sadly most of the products in the online delivery are under five pounds only and according to Walmart 70% of its American customers are within 5 miles radius only. So long-range and heavy product delivery is safe, at least for some time. So the delivery people’s best alternative is learning more about drones. As long as you know to operate and fix drones you have a job in your store.

Banking

Financial and the banking sectors are the one to first embrace the new technology next to military. The main motive of any banking sector is safe, secure, and fast service. Now we can send and receive payments from our phones. Apple pay and e-wallet made cashless transactions from dream to reality.

According to Carl Benedikt Frey & Michael Osborne the authors of the Oxford report. Automation and computerization will first replace the repetitive jobs. Unfortunately, in the banking sector, most of the day-to-day tasks are regular tasks. Adding a few lines of code can handle more tasks effectively without any errors. Here is a detailed chart for the job categories and their probability of computerization.

You can judge there are some jobs where automation is tough and those jobs are a future proof from the above chart. Want to know what jobs are safe in the future? That is going to my next post, please subscribe to my blog to stay updated.

Next Move

The best alternative for the people in the banks is to get digital. You fellas at the bank know better than anyone that digital money is the next big thing. When you can gain more knowledge in the digital currency that is closely related to the Bank’s core value safe, secure, and fast service there is a chair for you in the bank.

Sales and Marketing

Whom do you think your biggest rivals are? Who is responsible for making your job stand on the verge of extinction? The reason is in your hand now and you are paying for it – yes, it is the internet. To be more precise, it is social media.

Social media and the internet are the places where people spend most of their time. When the internet was born in CERN, no one would ever thought it will be such a revolutionary invention. What you see and what you browse becomes the data. These data make you a target for a product. The social media and the search engines acts as a channel to sell a product to you. All these are done by complex algorithms.

As I have mentioned in my AMP mobile ads post a significant amount of Google’s income is from the Google ads. You can see any of the top social media like Facebook, Twitter and be it any, most of their income is through ads. Targeted ads make the product reach easy and also conversion ratios higher than any of the sales and marketing channel. Welcome to the digital world, my people.

Next Move

If you are in direct sales and marketing or in the word of mouth marketing model. Then, it is the best time for you to learn more about digital marketing. Find people with their keywords, target your ads, make more conversions, and sell more.

You affect the world by what you browse

Tim Berners-Lee

Choose a channel, be it be social media marketing or search engine marketing, learn to the core, and stay updated. You can make more money with less marketing effort; work smart.

Stock Trading

Stock traders are at a big risk now. As said before financial sectors are the first one to embrace the new technology. Stocks and trades can make double or even triple your investment if we were clever enough to understand the market signal we can always be successful in stocks.

But to beat our understanding and logical reasoning bots are now been deployed to buy and sell stocks. Micro trading is becoming more and more popular now. The bots are hungrily waiting for the market sign when they detect the scenario they have been waiting they will sell the shares. Based on the type of bots you use and the algorithm they are based on, you can make your earnings. Different bots are designed and tuned to do different things, relatively their reactions to market varies.

Next Move

As you can see, the bots are the king here. If you know how to code and control the bots, then you can cling on to your job.

A recent report noted that Goldman Sachs fired 600 traders and replaced them with just 200 software engineers.

Software engineers are the most wanted in the stock trading sectors than the traders. In the online world, you can create your virtual trader as a bot, feed it with your knowledge and let him rock as you were with the customers.

Cashiers and Accountants

On an average, a well-skilled accountant in the US can make a $60K per annum. It is one of the well-paid jobs, but sadly now they are on the verge of extinction. The cashiers in the stores are the one who is a most dangerous situation.

As said above in the Amazon Go everything is automated. All you have to do is to go in, pick up your items, a notification will be shown on your mobile while you leave the shop, pay and leave. No queue and no waiting.

Since every transaction are made by digital, people and government can have a clear overview of the transactions. To meet the digital era, the governments are also making constant modifications in the policies and in their tax system. As an accountant, it will take a few months to completely understand the new system but for the software, it is just an update.

Next Move

Whatever be the software, still contacts are the most powerful asset of an accountant. Software can’t make friends. In order to survive, we have to add both the hard work and the smart work. By making yourself very much clear about the digital economy can help you have a stable job in the future.

Manufacturing Workers

Industrial revolution paved the way for many workers, especially in Europe. Remember this scene from the Modern Times

In order to complete a product, many have to stay in line to complete. But now a days a single machine can dismantle a product part by part by not even missing a screw behind. I hope you have seen Apple’s Liam. If not, check the video below

Next Move

The sensors and AI have evolved a lot. Being a skilled labor is not enough in future factories. You need to have engineering knowledge, either get into the software or into the electronics.

Driver and Transport

Everyone knows how autonomous driving has evolved after the advent of TESLA. They made things possible, which were considered a dream. They have not only revolutionized car industry by introducing SEMI they now have entered the truck business also. The expected time of production and delivery is 2019.

The biggest taxi network Uber also investing a lot in the autonomous driving. Apple recently called off the Apple car project and Google is still trying to make a good AI for cars with all the data it has.

Next move

Driving is something that involves human lives. Governments won’t simply allow fully automated driving. In densely populated countries like India, there is only permission for semi-automated cars, because the traffic level is so high. The driver jobs won’t be disappearing anytime sooner because still, the system needs a human assistance to function properly.

Travel and Tourism

This service-based sector is already evolving. Just an “Ok Google” or ”Hey Siri” phrase can fetch us the best place to see in a country. Since more and more food and hotel reviews are given in the online, Google intelligently fetches the data to give a better suggestion. Room booking, arranging tickets, and everything can be done via the websites.

Next Move

Most of the people had already started to make use of the technology. Take your business online, tell people how good are you and the specialty of your services. Even though the Google gives suggestions, being a local guy you know more about the stores than the Google knows.

Printers and Publishers

They are facing the toughest time of all these years. Data is everywhere, these people where make use of news and information to earn. Bu these are freely available now if you need to get a live update about a scenario from the people you go to FB and Reddit, if you need to hear from the diplomats or celebrities you will hit the Twitter. So as a whole printers and publishers are struggling a lot nowadays, especially the small and midrange publishers.

The only print and publisher who was able to run paywall successfully is “The New York Times”

Next Move

Today’s business and inventions solely depend on data. As long as you have unique data that others were not able to get, you can rule this industry. Researched data have demand in this content-rich world. For example, even this article is revolving around the researched data of Carl Benedikt Frey & Michael Osborne. Not only me even big publishers like Forbes and other big guns in print and media talked about the same topic when this article was released. Hope you understand the value of contents and data now.

Which Job You’re in Now?

These are some of the disappearing jobs, which are experiencing a lot of threats because of automation. As you can see most of the jobs are not going to disappear, they are going to evolve to the modern standards. When you are able to get the enough knowledge to meet the demand, you win your job.

I have managed to give you better solutions to keep up with your job. Being a professional you know better how your industry is evolving. Share your tips and ideas in the comment section below so that other readers may get benefitted. As I said above, I’ll share the future-proof jobs on my next blog. To get more useful contents like this please subscribe to my blog and always remember “it’s always your next move”