McKinsey Study: Current Tech Could Automate Half of Paid Jobs Worldwide

A new study from McKinsey Global Institute estimates nearly half of activities employees carry out in the world’s workforce at approximately $16 trillion in wages could be automated with the use of currently demonstrated technologies.

McKinsey Global Institute said Thursday the report on “A future that works: Automation, employment, and productivity” has estimated automation to raise productivity growth by 1.4 percent annually.

The report says every occupation has the potential for partial automation and the opportunities most susceptible to automation include physical ones in manufacturing, food service and retail trades.

The report added that expansion of robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies have also demonstrated a capacity to automate cognitive tasks such as tacit judgment making, emotion sensing and driving.

Ongoing development of technological capacities, technological costs, competition with labor, supply and demand dynamics, social and regulatory acceptance will impact the pace and extent of automation in the coming years and the research organization estimates half of today’s work activities could be automated by 2055.

James Manyika, Michael Chui, Mehdi Miremadi, Jacques Bughin, Katy George, Paul Willmott and Martin Dewhurst co-authored the report.