Finally, the jobs most susceptible to automation are routine jobs that are made up of few, repetitive tasks, which tend to be lower- or middle-skill jobs. Non-routine jobs, on the other hand, require interpersonal or critical-thinking skills that are not easily automated. In yet another paper, Autor explains that this distinction causes automation to help high-skill workers (and some low-skill workers, such as housekeepers) to the detriment of low- and medium-skill ones. This goes for industrial robots, too. Economists Georg Graetz and Guy Michaels found that industrial robots decrease the hours worked by both low- and medium-skill workers but have no effect on total hours worked — meaning that if these robots do help some workers in the industries where they’re implemented, they’re helping the highest-skilled and best-paid employees.

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