Roughly one-fifth of companies report in a new survey that they've replaced jobs with automation, though most also say the process has created more human jobs overall for their company.
by Frank Kalman
July 31, 2014
Employees beware: Technology is coming for you.
About 21 percent of companies report that they have replaced human employees with automation, according to a new survey from CareerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists. What's more, 30 percent of companies with more than 500 employees say they've replaced workers with such technology.
The national survey, conducted from May 13 to June 6, polled a sample of about 2,100 hiring managers and human resources professionals across industries and company sizes.
Still, replacing workers with automation in some areas has helped create jobs for humans in other facets of the business. According to the survey, 68 percent of companies that have replaced workers with authomation said their adoption of the new technology resulted in new positions being added in the organization, with 35 percent saying automation ended up creating more jobs than they had before.
Among the industries most likely to be disrupted by automation were customer service, information technology and assembly and production. Those least likely to be affected were sales and shipping and distribution, according to the survey.