Society & Work
How many jobs are created by automation every day?
Automation creates jobs too. The WEF Future of Jobs 2025 projects 170 million new jobs created by 2030, against 92 million displaced, a net gain of 78 million. The previous 2023 report projected only 69 million created and 83 million displaced (net -14 million); the improved 2025 outlook reflects accelerating demand for green economy, care, and AI specialist roles. Past automation waves eventually created more than they destroyed; but geographic and skills gaps mean the net gain will not reach all workers equally.
Roughly 1.2 jobs every minute.
Source: WEF Future of Jobs 2025; BLS Displaced Workers Survey 2024. AnythingCounter overview →
Is your job at risk from automation - and what does the research actually say you should do?
The most widely cited automation risk study (Frey & Osborne, Oxford, 2013) estimated that 47% of US jobs were at high risk of automation within two decades. That number generated enormous media coverage - and has since been largely revised downward. Follow-on research by OECD (2016) found only about 9% of jobs were at high risk in developed economies, because the original study assessed whole occupations rather than specific tasks. Most jobs contain both automatable and non-automatable tasks.
What the research consistently shows is a polarization of the labor market rather than mass unemployment: middle-skill routine jobs (bookkeeping, data entry, assembly-line work) are most vulnerable, while both high-skill cognitive roles and low-skill manual dexterity jobs are more resilient. The jobs being created by automation are concentrated in deployment, maintenance, AI oversight, and new product categories - roles that require formal technical training that workers displaced from routine jobs often do not have. The transition burden is highly uneven.
The honest answer for most people is that the risk is not binary but gradual: your role will likely change more than it will disappear. Tasks within your job will automate. The workers who fare best are those who identify which parts of their role are hardest to automate (judgment, relationship-building, physical context, ethical oversight) and invest in deepening those specifically. The counter above shows job creation - but the corresponding displacement counter tells the other half of the story.
Job creation from technology over time
Every major wave of automation has ultimately created more jobs than it destroyed, from the industrial revolution through computerisation, with the WEF's latest outlook projecting 170 million new roles from technology adoption by 2030.
| Year | Rate | Jobs/day | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 1.2/min | 2K | Pre-LLM automation wave |
| 2024 | 1.2/min | 2K | AI specialist roles growing fastest; no single global count exists, rate derived from BLS regional data |
| 2027 (forecast) | 33/min | 48K | AI, green economy, digital roles |
| 2028 (forecast) | 51/min | 73K | Green economy, AI ops, and care roles accelerate |
Key automation job creation statistics
WEF Future of Jobs 2025 projects 170 million new jobs created globally by 2030, against 92 million displaced — a net gain of 78 million
WEF 2023 projected 69 million new jobs 2023-2027 vs. 83 million displaced (net -14M); the 2025 update is significantly more optimistic, driven by green economy and care roles
AI and machine learning specialist is the fastest-growing job category globally (WEF 2025); frontline roles (farmworkers, delivery drivers) show the largest absolute growth
47% of work tasks in 2025 are performed mainly by humans alone; by 2030, employers expect this to be nearly evenly split between humans, technology, and human-machine collaboration (WEF 2025)
Jobs created vs. jobs displaced by automation, today
WEF's latest outlook has creation (170M by 2030) comfortably ahead of destruction (92M), reversing the 2023 report's first-ever net-negative projection. The live counters show both flows accumulating simultaneously.
The job creation side of automation: what technology actually builds
Creation and destruction
Every WEF Future of Jobs Report projects both gross job creation and gross job destruction. The 2018 report was net positive (+58M); the 2020 report was net positive (+12M); the 2023 report was net negative (-14M) for the first time; the 2025 report turned positive again (+78M by 2030), driven by frontline roles (farmworkers, delivery drivers, construction), care jobs, and green economy roles. The key variable remains reskilling speed: 77% of employers plan to upskill workers, but 41% simultaneously plan to reduce headcount where AI can automate tasks.
The geography of new jobs
Job creation from automation is not evenly distributed. Technology-driven roles, AI engineers, data scientists, green energy technicians, cybersecurity analysts, cluster in high-income countries with strong educational infrastructure. Lower-income countries that concentrated on manufacturing and data processing jobs face displacement without proportional creation of replacement roles. This geographic asymmetry means global net figures can mask severe local disruption, where communities built around displaced industries do not naturally transform into hubs for new technology roles.
WEF, Oxford, OECD: what the major automation studies actually found
| Year | Finding | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | WEF Future of Jobs 2018: 75M jobs displaced by 2022; 133M new roles created, net positive of 58M | 133.0M new jobs projected 2018-2022 | World Economic Forum |
| 2020 | WEF Future of Jobs 2020: 85M jobs displaced by 2025; 97M new roles, net positive of 12M | 97.0M new jobs projected 2020-2025 | World Economic Forum |
| 2023 | WEF Future of Jobs 2023: 69M new jobs 2023-2027; 83M displaced; net -14M (2% of employment) — first negative net projection | 69.0M new jobs projected 2023-2027 | World Economic Forum |
| 2025 | WEF Future of Jobs 2025 (Jan 2025): 170M new jobs by 2030; 92M displaced; net +78M (7% of employment). Robotics/autonomous systems is largest net job displacer (-5M net). 77% of employers plan to upskill workers; 41% plan workforce reductions from AI automation | 170.0M new jobs projected by 2030 | World Economic Forum |
| 2026 | WEF Four Futures for Jobs in the New Economy (Jan 2026): 4 AI/talent scenarios through 2030; 56% wage premium available for workers with demonstrable AI skills; broadening digital access is the most transformative trend (60% of employers) | qualitative scenarios | World Economic Forum |
From the Luddites to ChatGPT: automation's history of disrupting work
- 2018WEF: 133M new jobs projected by 2022, still an optimistic net creation
- 2020WEF: 97M new jobs projected by 2025, net positive narrows to 12M
- 2023WEF: 69M new jobs, 83M displaced; first net negative projection; AI disruption broader than previous automation
- 2025WEF Future of Jobs 2025: 170M new jobs by 2030 vs. 92M displaced; net +78M — reversal driven by frontline, care and green economy roles; robotics/autonomous systems is the single largest net job displacer
In perspective
A new technology-linked job is created somewhere every 50 seconds. The catch: these roles typically require skills that displaced workers don't have yet.
About 630,000 technology-driven jobs are created each year based on the conservative BLS-anchored estimate. That's roughly the entire working population of Luxembourg.
WEF 2025 projects 170 million new jobs from all macrotrends by 2030, vs. 92 million displaced — a net gain of 78 million, larger than the entire workforce of Germany.
How the number is calculated
The live counter uses a conservative estimate of ~1.2 new technology-linked jobs per minute globally, derived from recent AI/tech hiring data across regions (BLS and comparable surveys, 2024). This equates to roughly 630,000 new tech-driven roles per year. For context, WEF's Future of Jobs 2025 projects 170 million new jobs by 2030 (roughly 65 new jobs per minute), but that is a five-year forecast covering all automation-created roles broadly, and a sharp swing from the 2023 edition's 69 million; the counter uses a more conservative observed baseline. All figures carry significant uncertainty as no single official source tracks automation job creation globally.
Sources: WEF - Future of Jobs Report 2025 - BLS - Overview of Employment Statistics. Methodology →
Frequently asked questions
- How many jobs are created by automation and technology?
- The WEF Future of Jobs 2025 Report projects 170 million new jobs created globally by 2030 from technology adoption, against 92 million jobs displaced, resulting in a net gain of 78 million jobs. The prior 2023 report had projected a net loss of 14 million.
- What types of jobs are being created by technology?
- The fastest-growing roles include AI and machine learning specialists, sustainability specialists, business intelligence analysts, information security analysts, fintech engineers, and data analysts. Many of these roles require significantly higher education and technical skills than the jobs being displaced.
Why trust this data
The WEF Future of Jobs Report is based on surveys of Chief Human Resources and Strategy Officers at over 800 companies across 27 industry clusters and 45 economies, collectively employing over 11.3 million workers. It is published every two years and is the most comprehensive multi-industry outlook on employment from technology change. The McKinsey Global Institute 2023 report provides independent corroboration.
Explore related: Jobs lost to automation - Robots deployed - Automation statistics, and the AnythingCounter data dashboard.