Thanks in part to automated mail sorting systems, postal workers may be all but obsolete in the not-so-distant future.
By 2024, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 28% decline in postal-service jobs, totaling around 136,000 fewer positions than 2014.
Mail carriers and processors aren’t the only ones whose jobs are disappearing thanks to robots.
Automation technologies that conduct physical, intellectual, or customer service tasks are affecting a variety of fields, most notably metal and plastic machine workers.
I – Word Understanding
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) – is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics and serves as a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System.
Automation technologies – the technique, method, or system of operating or controlling a process by highly automatic
II – Have Your Say
Here are 13 jobs that could be on their way out of the US thanks to robots:
1. Forging Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
2. Grinding, lapping, polishing, and buffing machine tool setters, operators, and tenders (metal and plastic)
3. Patternmakers (metal and plastic)
4. Extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders (metal and plastic)
5. Molding, core making, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders (metal and plastic)
6. Postmasters and mail superintendents
7. Postal-service clerks
8. Postal-service mail carriers
9. Pourers and casters (metal)
10. Foundry mold and core makers
11. Switchboard operators, including answering service
12. Postal-service mail sorters, processors, and processing-machine operators
13. Telephone operators
