Advances in automation technology threaten a significant proportion of jobs in industries that account for nearly a quarter of the world’s workforce, according to Bloomberg Economics estimates.
In a report released on Tuesday, economists Ziad Daoud and Scott Johnson said that could mean up to 800 million people face a high risk of robots taking over their jobs.
They write that residents of the Gulf Countries, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Japan are most vulnerable to job losses due to industrial automation.
This is because these countries have a large workforce performing simple, routine tasks that are most easily replaced by machines.
While these countries still rely on cheap labor to complete their tasks, sooner or later economic feasibility will force these countries to switch to more accurate and durable automation.
For example, it can affect administrative work in Japan or workers in factories in Central Europe.
Economists believe that increasing production automation poses a risk of increasing income inequality.
Whereas earlier it was thought that robots mainly threaten low-skilled jobs, now they are replacing people in workplaces, the performance of tasks on which can be broken down into simple mechanical actions.
Some of the most vulnerable countries are also experiencing rapid population aging, which means new technologies can help offset demographic constraints in their economies, Daoud and Johnson said.
