Just a few years ago, policy-makers became concerned about the prospect of many job-related tasks being automated using advances in robotics and artificial intelligence and in particular about the projected job losses at the time. While we no longer expect entire jobs to disappear, new technologies may substantially transform jobs, forcing workers to adjust to new requirements and prompting governments to assist them in this process.

The results from this study stand in sharp contrast with many observers’ expectations that the new technologies could adversely affect workers previously seen as immune to automation. It suggests that the workers at high risk of job transformation due to automation, by and large, share the same characteristics as workers who have been susceptible to poor labour market outcomes in the past. Frenette and Frank say that more research is needed to better understand which characteristics can be interpreted as risk factors. Nevertheless, by shedding light on the differential effects of automation on particular segments of the workforce, their study contributes to labour market policy development going forward.