As technology continues to advance, one worry many people have expressed is the concept of jobs being lost to “automation.” This is a scary and poorly defined word, but many people worry that a motorized process could do their jobs could more easily, effectively and cheaply than they do. That has led to many people looking for careers that you can’t automate. Could cosmetology be a good career choice for this reason?

The Fear of Automation

In some ways, the fear of automation isn’t an inherently ridiculous one. Automation has certainly removed a number of jobs in the past few decades. However, it’s important to remember that this has been a thing for nearly all of human history; there were likely scribes who feared “losing their jobs to automation” in the wake of the printing press.

Even if you do lose your job to an automated process, remember that almost all lost jobs end up with a replacement job somewhere else in the cog. If a fear of automation tends to drive you, take this as an indicator that it’s okay to calm down about the concept.

What Makes a Job More or Less Automatable?

If you want to avoid ending up in an automatable job field, it’s important to consider what makes a job more or less automatable. These are some of the characteristics of an automatable job:

• Routine
• Little human touch needed
• Does few things
• No creativity required

On the other hand, if your job has these characteristics, you’re less likely to be in an automatable job field:

• Creativity plays a major role
• Complete conversations with people required
• Does a variety of things
• Needs to make quick judgment calls

As you can see, there’s a type of “profile” that automatable jobs tend to fall into. You can probably already think of a variety of jobs that might be first on the chopping block as soon as different companies learn more about how to automate them.

Can a Job Be Truly Non-Automatable?

It’s worth it to ask a simple question: Can a job really be wholly non-automatable? Is it possible that any job could not in any way be automated by computers? That really depends on what you believe technology is ultimately capable of.

Some people believe that fully-formed androids could at some point become possible. If this were the case, then essentially no job is technically “safe” from automation. However, most people believe that any robot approaching human capabilities is generally impossible. That means as long as a job requires a significant amount of human input, it will never be able to be fully automated.

The Non-Automatable Aspects of Cosmetology

Cosmetology is a great field to go into partially because it’s so wholly non-automatable. In fact, cosmetology is one of the most creative fields out there, which makes it great for people who are looking to enter a career with plenty of future security. These are some of the key aspects of cosmetology that make it essentially non-automatable:

• Customer-facing interactions
• Creativity
• A gentle touch
• An understanding of color theory
• The ability to synthesize customer requests

None of these are things an automated program would be able to recreate reliably. That’s one reason that cosmetology is becoming even more highly prized now than it has been in the past.

Conclusion

Automation is becoming a more and more pressing concern among many people who are entering the job market. Is your current job at risk of automation? What can you do to move into a job that isn’t as automatable? A cosmetology program might be the perfect option. If you’ve been considering a cosmetology program, request information from Ogle School to learn more about your cosmetology program opportunities.