Self-Driving Cars Could Transform Jobs Held By 1 In 9 U.S. Workers
Commerce Department: 15.5 million jobs that involve driving could feel effects from driverless vehicles
By Ben Leubsdorf
The Wall Street Journal
August 16, 2017
Self-driving vehicles have the potential to reshape a wide range of occupations held by roughly one in nine American workers, according to a new U.S. government report.
About 3.8 million people drive taxis, trucks, ambulances and other vehicles for a living. An additional 11.7 million workers drive as part of their work, including personal care aides, police officers, real-estate agents and plumbers. In all, that’s roughly 11.3% of total U.S. employment based on 2015 occupational data, according to the analysis by three Commerce Department economists.
If businesses embrace autonomous vehicles on a large scale, workers in the first category are “more likely to be displaced” from their jobs, while workers in the latter group “may be more likely to benefit from greater productivity and better working conditions,” wrote David Beede, Regina Powers and Cassandra Ingram in the report, released Friday.
Automakers like Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. and technology giants like Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. are racing to develop vehicles that can operate without a human driver. If successfully introduced in the coming years or decades, self-driving cars and trucks have the potential to reshape whole industries — and change the careers of millions of people who work in them.
The Commerce Department report explored which workers are likely to be supplanted by automated vehicles, or at least see changes to their job descriptions. It didn’t analyze how the technology might help create new jobs.
Some truck drivers, bus operators and others who work in jobs that primarily involve operating a motor vehicle “might have difficulty finding alternative employment” if their current jobs disappear, the economists wrote. Those workers, they said, are on average “older, less educated, and for the most part have fewer transferable skills than other workers, especially the kinds of skills required for non-routine cognitive tasks.”
The outlook was less bleak for workers whose jobs involve some driving, such as letter carriers and electricians. For them, “it is only one of many important work activities, many of which already require the kinds of non-routine cognitive skills that are becoming increasingly in demand in our economy,” the economists wrote. “Such workers are likely to be able to adapt to the widespread adoption of [autonomous vehicles].”
Self-driving vehicles have the potential to reshape a wide range of occupations held by roughly one in nine American workers, according to a new U.S. government report.
About 3.8 million people drive taxis, trucks, ambulances and other vehicles for a living. An additional 11.7 million workers drive as part of their work, including personal care aides, police officers, real-estate agents and plumbers. In all, that’s roughly 11.3% of total U.S. employment based on 2015 occupational data, according to the analysis by three Commerce Department economists.
If businesses embrace autonomous vehicles on a large scale, workers in the first category are “more likely to be displaced” from their jobs, while workers in the latter group “may be more likely to benefit from greater productivity and better working conditions,” wrote David Beede, Regina Powers and Cassandra Ingram in the report, released Friday.
Automakers like Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. and technology giants like Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. are racing to develop vehicles that can operate without a human driver. If successfully introduced in the coming years or decades, self-driving cars and trucks have the potential to reshape whole industries — and change the careers of millions of people who work in them.
The Commerce Department report explored which workers are likely to be supplanted by automated vehicles, or at least see changes to their job descriptions. It didn’t analyze how the technology might help create new jobs.
Some truck drivers, bus operators and others who work in jobs that primarily involve operating a motor vehicle “might have difficulty finding alternative employment” if their current jobs disappear, the economists wrote. Those workers, they said, are on average “older, less educated, and for the most part have fewer transferable skills than other workers, especially the kinds of skills required for non-routine cognitive tasks.”
The outlook was less bleak for workers whose jobs involve some driving, such as letter carriers and electricians. For them, “it is only one of many important work activities, many of which already require the kinds of non-routine cognitive skills that are becoming increasingly in demand in our economy,” the economists wrote. “Such workers are likely to be able to adapt to the widespread adoption of [autonomous vehicles].”
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