Automation is serious threat to jobs in Sarasota-Manatee, study warns – Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Nearly half of the wages paid to local workers could be lost in the next 20 years.

The Sarasota-Manatee region could be among the hardest hit in the nation by job losses from automation, a new study warns.

More than 62 percent of jobs in the two counties may be targeted for automation in the future, the fifth-highest share among the 100 largest U.S. metro areas, according to theInstitute for Spatial Economic Analysis.

The impact of automation on jobs may be more severe than experts previously thought, ISEA said. With recent advances in machine learning and mobile robotics, even jobs like truck driving, heath care diagnostics and education could be affected.

The replacement of jobs by machines has been happening continuously since the Industrial Revolution, but its expected to significantly accelerate in the coming 10 or 20 years, said Professor Johannes Moenius, director of ISEA. Pretty much everyone will be affected, but some metropolitan areas will see a lot more jobs vanish than others.

Jobs in office and administrative support, food preparation and serving, and sales account for half of the occupations that could be shifted to automation in the future, ISEA said.

The leisure-hospitality and professional-business services sectors are among the largest employers in Sarasota and Manatee counties. Employment in the leisure industry rose 7.6 percent over the year in March, according to state figures, but jobs in professional services declined 2.6 percent.

Anthony Gagliano, director of business services at CareerSource Suncoast, said jobs in those sectors can be found in the region. Pollo Tropical, for example, just hired 16 workers for its new restaurant in Sarasota.

Automation also is creating jobs. RND Automation & Engineering in south Manatee County, amaker of custom automation machines, has been expanding for several years.

But automation could change the employment picture in the future.

"In the short term, I don't think so," Gagliano said. "But in the long term, it's something we will have to take a look at."

The Las Vegas area topped the list of potential jobs losses to automation. Orlando ranked seventh.

Nearly half of the wages paid to workers in Sarasota-Manatee could be lost in the next 20 years if the study's automation forecast comes true.

"Since lower-income jobs face higher automation risk, the effect on employment will be much more drastic than the effect on wages," the study said. "Metro areas with a high share of low-paying jobs will have larger job and wage losses."

The research group stressed that the probability of automation does not equal future unemployment rates. Automation often works together with new job creation in skilled and less-skilled labor.

However, the speed and the high share of automation in less skilled jobs raises many questions about whether the economy will be able to make up for the expected job losses," said study lead author Jess Chen. "What we do expect is that automation will create winners and losers among cities and regions of the U.S., where losers may not recover to their original employment levels within even a decades time.

The ISEA, based at the University of Redlands in California, provides science- and research-based analysis and forecasts of economic phenomena.

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Automation is serious threat to jobs in Sarasota-Manatee, study warns - Sarasota Herald-Tribune