A new study by Ball State University found automation could eliminate half of all low-skilled jobs, and offshoring could wipe out as many as a fourth of all American jobs.

Ball State University'sCenter for Business and Economic Research and Rural Policy Institute's Center for State Policy found automation could jeopardize jobs likedata-entry keyers, mathematical science occupations, telemarketers, insurance underwriters and mathematical technicians in coming years. TheHow Vulnerable Are American Communities to Automation, Trade and Urbanization? study also determined that outsourcing to foreign countries could displace computer programmers, data-entry keyers, electrical and electronic drafters, mechanical drafters and computer and information research scientists, as well as factory workers.

Automation is likely to replace half of all low-skilled jobs, Center for Business and Economic Research director Michael Hicks said. Communities where people have lower levels of educational attainment and lower incomes are the most vulnerable to automation. Considerable labor market turbulence is likely in the coming generation.

Communities with large number of low-skilled residents who only received high-school degrees, including many in Indiana, could face economic devastation.

More worrisome is that there is considerable concentration of job loss risks across labor markets, educational attainment and earnings, Hicks said. This accrues across industries and is more pronounced across urban regions, where economies have concentrated all net new employment in the U.S. for a generation.

Jobs that were deemed safest from offshoring and automation include recreational therapists, emergency management directors, mental health and substance abuse social workers, audiologists and first-line supervisors of mechanics, installers and repairers. They tend to pay an average of $80,000 a year, versus $40,000 a year for lower skilled jobs.

On a very basic level, long-term job instability and depression of wages has a direct impact on well-being, said Emily Wornell, a rural sociologist with the Rural Policy Research Institutes Center for State Policy. The impacts of job displacement go beyond economics, affecting health, family stability, educational outcomes and social integration.

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Ball State study finds automation could replace half of low-skilled jobs - nwitimes.com