An Oxford Economics report says Louisiana is one of the states most vulnerable to losing a significant amount of jobs due to automation.

The report says Louisiana is particularly vulnerable to the robotics revolution due to it’s status as a “low-skill” region that relies on manufacturing and service jobs. UNO Business Professor Mark Rosa.

“Anybody who is going to lose their job to a robot substitute, that’s usually entry level work, or something that can be done repetitively by a machine.”

Oregon is most at risk, followed by Louisiana, Texas, and Indiana.

But that loss may not be felt as much in tourism dependent areas of Louisiana like New Orleans, where you can’t replace the cultural experience with a screen.

“If you have to interface with people and a smiley face, and not people just doing things on phones, there’s a place for that. You go into a restaurant and you’re being served those things would be hard to replace with machinery.”

Hawaii, Florida, and Nevada were marked as the safest states, due to their statewide status as tourism hubs.
The report noted that the rise of automation will “generate new employment opportunities at a pace comparable with the rate of job destruction” but result in higher income inequality. Rosa adds the revolution will increase demand for high-skill workers.

“A lot of the robots, well they have to be manufactured as well, so that brings in a whole new group of people that will make the machines, and that will take the place of some jobs.”

The report notes the coming robotic manufacturing revolution destroy 20 million jobs worldwide, with 260,000 being lost in America since 2000.

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