Predictions about which jobs may be “lost” in the United States as employers implement new automation and algorithmic technologies often consider management tasks and roles as the least vulnerable to being entirely displaced by these new technologies. As Equitable Growth grantee and Research Advisory Board member David Autor explains, the tasks and roles that have been seen as less susceptible to automation so far are often those that can be described as nonroutine cognitive and social tasks, which are common in professional and managerial roles.

Of course, many forecasters do suggest that advanced automation and algorithmic technologies—aided and abetted by artificial intelligence—will one day advance to the point that they are able to replace managerial roles. But the loss of management roles to different kinds of automation and algorithms is not a far-off trend of the future. In many ways, it is already here, yet invisible—in part because of how U.S. companies use these new technologies to “offload” management tasks and roles to their lower-level employees, gig workers, and even customers.

U.S. companies use technology to automate, outsource, and offload workforce monitoring and management tasks in a variety of industries, which affects U.S. workers, as well as consumers, labor markets overall, and economic growth. Automation and algorithmic decision-making already affect U.S. workers throughout their employment relationships, starting with recruitment and hiring and extending throughout workplace environments.

Algorithmic management tools codify and extend management decisions in ways that likewise can affect many aspects of job quality, including wages, hours, and scheduling stability, as well as workers’ health and safety. What’s more, in the current U.S. landscape of weakened labor protections and rising corporate power, companies often use technological management tools in ways that worsen working conditions, reduce worker autonomy, and can have broader labor market effects connected to de-skilling, misclassification, and exercise of worker power.

Read the full article about automated and algorithmic management by Kathryn Zickuhr at Equitable Growth.