The good news for millennials: many are looking for jobs that most likely won't be replaced by a robot. The bad news: about half are desiring occupations that are prone to automation, according to a study of clicks of job postings on the Indeed jobsite.
"Millennials show a considerable amount of interest in occupations that face a threat of automation," Indeed Hiring Lab economist Daniel Culbertson told the Washington Post. "That gets lost when people talk about millennials being so highly educated and more interested in tech roles."
However, breaking down routine and non-routine occupations based on whether they primarily involve cognitive or manual skills, millennials show more interest than the other generations in routine cognitive and non-routine manual occupations – such as administrative assistants or bartenders – which aren't susceptible to automation.
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Culberton writes on the Indeed blog that the younger generation is currently more likely to click on these job postings because many are at an earlier stage in their careers.
Moreover, the top five occupations for interest from millennials are all non-routine occupations that would be difficult to automate, he writes.
In particular, millennials are 21.9% more interested than all job seekers in occupations in health care-related industries.
"Interestingly, this occupation is expected to grow by 23% from 2014 to 2024, making this a good choice for those just beginning their careers," Culberton writes.
Still, millennials should be aware of how automation could eventually impact their chosen careers, as technological progress is going to impact different occupations at different times, he writes.
"Disappearing jobs can be a frightening concept and it's impossible to know exactly what jobs are 'safe,'" Culberton writes. "But workers can prepare themselves by building up transferable, non-routine skills that can be applied to a wide array of occupations,"
Michael Chui, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute, told the Washington Post that understanding the future labor climate is difficult because practically every job has some component a robot could theoretically handle.
"Roughly all of us will have automation affect what we do at work," Chui told the newspaper. "Even if our job doesn't go away, pieces of our job will be automated."
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Katie Kuehner-Hebert
Katie Kuehner-Hebert is a freelance writer based in Running Springs, Calif. She has more than three decades of journalism experience, with particular expertise in employee benefits and other human resource topics.
