Society & Work
How many jobs are created by automation every day?
Every wave of automation has ultimately created more jobs than it destroyed, but the transition is painful
Roughly 1.2 jobs every minute.
Source: WEF Future of Jobs 2023; BLS Displaced Workers Survey 2024. View on dashboard →
What kinds of jobs does automation actually create - and who gets them?
Automation creates jobs too. The WEF 2023 report projects 69 million new jobs from 2023-2027: AI specialists, data analysts, sustainability engineers, cybersecurity. But 83 million will be displaced, so net is minus 14 million. Past automation waves eventually created more than they destroyed; this one may not.
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 WEF projecting 69 million new roles from technology adoption between 2023 and 2027.
| 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 2023 projects 69 million new jobs created globally 2023-2027 from technology adoption
AI and machine learning specialist is the fastest-growing job category globally (WEF 2023)
WEF net: 83M jobs displaced, 69M created = 14M net loss 2023-2027 (2% of employment)
Jobs created vs. jobs displaced by automation, today
The net balance between creation (69M) and destruction (83M) makes the 2023-2027 period the first net-negative WEF 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 is net negative (-14M) for the first time. This trend reflects growing consensus that AI, unlike previous automation waves, is displacing cognitive as well as physical work, threatening a broader range of occupations than manufacturing automation. The key variable is reskilling speed: if workers can rapidly acquire new skills, human labour remains competitive.
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) | 69.0M new jobs projected 2023-2027 | 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
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. That's roughly the entire working population of Luxembourg.
The WEF projects 69 million new jobs from automation by 2027, but 83 million will vanish in that same period. The net loss of 14 million is larger than the entire workforce of the Netherlands.
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 2023 projects 69 million new jobs over 2023–2027 (approximately 26 new jobs per minute), but that is a five-year forecast covering all automation-created roles broadly; 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 2023 Report projects 69 million new jobs created globally between 2023-2027 from technology adoption, against 83 million jobs displaced, resulting in a net loss of 14 million jobs.
- 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 live AnythingCounter dashboard.