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WATCH: Almost 10% of Irish jobs at risk of being automated, says OECD

A new report has found almost 10% of Irish jobs could be at risk of being automated by technology...
Newstalk
Newstalk

13.52 17 Jul 2016


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WATCH: Almost 10% of Irish job...

WATCH: Almost 10% of Irish jobs at risk of being automated, says OECD

Newstalk
Newstalk

13.52 17 Jul 2016


Share this article


A new report has found almost 10% of Irish jobs could be at risk of being automated by technology.

The OECD Employment Outlook for 2016 says that the share of jobs at risk of automation is 9% in the US, and between 6% and 12% in other OECD countries.

This puts Ireland just below the average for jobs at risk of being automated.

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The report says jobs are at risk of automation "if the likelihood of their jobs being automated is at least 70%."

Source: OECD

Other countries with high risk of automation include Spain, Austria and Germany.

Those at low risk include Poland, Japan and South Korea.

While our nearest neighbour, Britain, is at a slightly higher risk of job automation than Ireland.

The employment report also says that the jobs gap in Ireland "remains large" when compared with pre-crisis levels.

"In some OECD countries, notably Chile, Germany, and Turkey, employment rates already exceed pre-crisis levels, while the jobs gap with the end of 2007 remains large in some European countries, notably Greece, Ireland and Spain (at 9, 7.9 and 8.5 percentage points, respectively)," it says.

And it says that wage growth remains subdued in many countries.

"Productivity growth has stagnated over the past years and many of the workers who lost their jobs in manufacturing and construction during the crisis have regained employment in the services sector in jobs that often do not match their skills and are lower-paid," the OECD says.

Wage gap

It notes that real wages fell sharply during the crisis in Greece, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, Spain, and the Baltic States.

"Comparing real wage growth during 2000-07 with 2008-15, a number of other countries, including the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, and the United Kingdom, experienced a sharp deceleration."

"By 2015, real hourly wages in these countries were more than 25% below where they would have been if wage growth had continued at the rate observed during 2000-07. This wage gap exceeded 20% in Greece, Hungary, and Ireland," it adds.

The same report also finds that Ireland is on top when it comes to offshoring - or the relocation of a business from one country to another.

Ireland overtakes all other countries in this category - including the US, the UK and Germany.

It also shows that the majority of these are business services - in contrast to other sectors, such as high-end and low-end manufacturers.

Source: OECD

But the report also points out that these results are "clearly tentative and highly speculative."

This is due to fragmented data available on offshoring, and the OECD says that "going beyond these tentative findings is not possible."

More generally, the OECD says that the proportion of people aged 15 to 74 in work will be 61% by the end of next year - slightly above the level recorded at the end of 2007.


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