Automation threaten 14 pc of existing jobs

Robots and computers threaten 14 percent of existing jobs over the next 20 years, so countries must retrain workers for a transformed labour market, the OECD warned yesterday. In a report published in Berlin, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates that in addition to the destruction of jobs and entire trades, an additional 32 percent of current jobs are likely to be “deeply transformed” by automation in the work place. According to OECD General Secretary Angel Gurria, the lack of preparation for the looming digital age is a time bomb on social and political levels. “It is important that people feel that they will be supported if they lose out, and helped in their search for new and better opportunities,” he said in a foreword to the report.