What Jobs Are Safe?

Last year, Evelyn bought me 10 sessions with a personal trainer. “Huh, I guess I should take the hint.” I thought, and dutifully reported to get my butt whipped into shape by Aaron, a very pleasant 31-year-old with a degree in physical therapy.

During our fifth workout or so, Aaron said to me, “Hey, have you seen some of these personal training apps? Should I be worried that my job is going to disappear?” Aaron was about to propose to his girlfriend and had money on his mind.

His thinking: ChatGPT will give you a comprehensive 40-minute routine if you take a picture of gym equipment, and an AI bot will yell “You’re fat!” in your ear for next to nothing.

I said to him:

“Look, at the margin, some people might use a virtual personal trainer and a home gym. But your job is going to be among the safest ones for a few reasons.

First, you’re in a job where some people are going to value the human touch. Having a real live trainer pushing you and stretching you is tough to replace.

Second, you do this job in Manhattan. This is one of the wealthiest places in the country. Your clientele is what’s called cost-insensitive. They’ll pay a premium and not think too hard about it.

Third, your clients are on the older side. These are among the folks who also would prefer to have a person as opposed to a bot over a screen.”

“Okay, that makes me feel better. Thanks!” Aaron said. Even better, his girlfriend said yes to his proposal a few weeks later and is now his fiancee.

Around the same time, I was doing a call-in show on NPR and a sixth-grade teacher called asking whether her job is safe. I responded, “Yes. We are going to need a teacher to be with our kids for a long time to come, and your school principal or supervisor doesn’t think replacing you with AI is a good idea. Also, AI wouldn’t be able to keep your sixth-graders from walking out the door if they felt like it.”

Teaching jobs are going to be reduced because of city and state budgets being under pressure and lower enrollments as people have fewer kids, but we’re talking about something gradual and an erosion of job security, not wholesale replacement due to AI.

Every day, I get people asking me whether their job is safe or not. The truth is, it’s complicated. Millions of people are going to be employed for years to come. But 44% of American jobs are either manual repetitive or cognitive repetitive and many of them are going to disappear. AI is to office parks what machines were to factories in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

A bunch of firms have come out with ratings and reports of how replaceable a job is by AI given the nature of the tasks involved. Here’s one from Microsoft, for example. But these ratings focus on the nature of the work and not other aspects of organizations, such as whether they are publicly traded and under immense scrutiny to optimize. If you work at a small, sleepy foundation, for example, they might not automate your job because they are just kind of chill or old-fashioned and you’re nice.

How do you know where you are? Here are a bunch of risk factors that your job might be automated away in the next little while:

Factors that Suggest Your Job Might Get Automated

Do you work in tech?

Are you a coder?

Do you make six figures?

Do you work for a publicly traded company?

Are you in a big department?

Does your job involve looking at a computer all day?

Do you work in customer service?

Do the words ‘analyst’ or ‘research’ show up in your job title?

How about ‘designer?’

Are you an interpreter or translator?

Would it be accurate to call you ‘an administrator?’

Do you work in finance, not as a rainmaker?

Do you work in law or consulting, not as a rainmaker?

Do you work in media or content production?

Are you being urged to finish up a particular project and/or monitor your decisions and activities?

Does your project not touch company revenue?

Is your supervisor not making eye contact with you as much?

Are you over the age of 48?

Are you a journalist?

Could you easily imagine a bot doing 80% of your job or more?

If you answered ‘Yes’ to one or more of these questions and you’re not in charge, I’d say you should start making contingency plans, saving some money, reaching out to professional contacts, and generally not be too confident that your present situation will stretch out over a period of multiple years.

Personal note: as a serial entrepreneur, I assume that whatever money I make will be the last I ever make unless I go do something else. Everything is eat what you kill. What a joyous approach to the world. I also eat with my back to the wall and send my kids out into the woods at random.

On the flip side, here are some factors that suggest your job may be resilient for the time being. Hooray!

Things that Might Make Your Job Safe(r for the Time Being)

Do you work for the government or a university? (Less institutional pressure to automate)

Are you in a union? (Require collective bargaining and have some protection)

Do you deal with people all day?

Do you deal with children all day?

Do you deal with sick people?

Do you work with your hands?

Do you repair things?

Do you get dirty?

Do you make house calls?

Do you deal with animals?

Do you touch another human being as part of your job (and it’s okay)?

Does your job involve going outside?

Are you between the ages of 30 and 45?

Do you work for a charity or philanthropic organization (that isn’t running out of money)?

Do you get paid less than $55,000 a year?

Do you serve the top 20% or so of consumers (i.e., rich people pay you)?

Do you have a lot of people who pay you a little bit for something?

Is your job something that people can’t do without?

Do you know something that can be used against the decision-maker such that they kind of want to keep you around?

Are you the person in your organization that other people ask about AI?

If you answered ‘Yes’ to one or more of these questions, congratulations! Your job will likely not be eliminated in the current round of AI-driven automation. People tell me that the robots are coming next, but that won’t be for… at least 12 months.

This is obviously a mildly tongue-in-cheek quiz - the truth is that the ground is shaky even in traditionally safe environments nowadays, as even if you work for a non-profit or the government, budgets are under strain. The big growth area has been health care, but a lot of that money is from state and federal budgets and it can’t go up forever. Someone has to pay for the health care after all.

So… what can you go into that you know has a future?

I’m reluctant to say this because it’s not for everyone, but try to own something. Be the person deciding where the resources go. I ran into an OG Yang Gang supporter at my book talk in Connecticut who said, “I joined my family’s contractor business, and it’s going great.” I could tell he was happy because he was an owner.

The best way to keep the boss from automating your job is to become a boss, because then the only person who can fire you is yourself.

I know, I wish I had better news. I’ll write more on other practical steps for people to take soon.

I started Noble Mobile mainly because it’s a way to save the average American family over a thousand dollars a year. I was spending $150 a month on Verizon and now I’m down to $49, and that’s just for me. Go to noblemobile.com/yang for 3 months off your wireless bill, the best deal around that will help you save for your family and look up. Email matt@noblemobile.com if you want the human touch. The Hudson Valley Ideas Fest returns to Rosendale, NY on April 25^th. Spring is arriving.