Research: OECD Skills Outlook 2019

A new report – Thriving in a Digital World 2019 – produced by the OECD, reveals that more than 10% of UK workers are currently at risk of seeing their roles automated.

The answer, it argues, is for much more staff training, to re-skill people.

But it also finds that workers most exposed to the risk of automation – the lowest-skilled – were given the least exposure training than higher-skilled workers – people whose jobs are already more secure.

It finds:

• One in seven high-risk workers received training in the last 12 months, compared to half of low-risk workers
• 14% of UK workers are defined as ‘high risk’ - those that have jobs that could be entirely replaced by technology
• 6% of employees required more than three years of training to find an entirely new role