Definitely a must-have interactive for your Careers Unit, from the Visual Capitalist:

So, how to use this chart that is overflowing with data?

1. The left hand graph “US employment by automation potential” allows students to move their cursor over the bar chart to find out what jobs have the highest (95-100%) and lowest (0-5%) potential for automation. Oh, in case you were wondering, Paper Goods Machine Setters had 100% of time automatable and Home Health Aides were at 0%.
2. The middle graph “US Employment by Automation Potential and Hourly Wage” demonstrates clearly that the highest wage jobs (those on the far right side of the graph) also had the lowest potential for automation. Examples here: Surgeons at $110/hour and 13% automation potential and Orthodontists at $96/hour and 11% automation potential. Of course, you also see quite a few low wage jobs (lower left) that also have low potential for automation too.
3. Click on a “Occupational Family” on far right side (e.g. Computer and Mathematical Occupations) and it highlights all the jobs in that particular field that appear in the middle graph. This will be insightful for students to see what jobs in a given occupational family are most/least likely to be automated.

So, questions to ask your students:

• What are examples of jobs that are most/least likely to be automated? Hint: Use the graph on the left hand side and slide your cursor over the bars to get examples of jobs.
• What are the characteristics of the jobs in each of these two categories?
• With the middle chart, is there a relationship between hourly wage and automation potential that you can discern from the chart?
• Choose five jobs where there are a lot of workers (based on the size of the bubble) and jot down how automatable those jobs are.
• Choose two occupational family of jobs that you are interested in and select them. Which jobs within those families are most/least automatable?
• Will this exercise have any impact on how you think about your future job prospects?

Oh, and good news for teachers. As you might imagine, the automation potential for educational related jobs are extremely low!

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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