Up to 5 million jobs in the U.S. could potentially be lost. Governments need to protect people, not industries, from the impacts of the autonomous electric vehicle (A-EV) disruption.

The automotive industry employs many people in the U.S., roughly 1.25 million directly and 7.25 million indirectly. (Source - Auto Alliance. 2016. America’s Automobile Industry Is One of the Most Powerful Engines Driving the US Economy. January 26. Retrieved from here.)

We estimate that up to 5 million jobs nationwide could be lost due to self-driving vehicles (including 3.5 million truck drivers and, of course, almost all taxi drivers), equating to 3% of the U.S. workforce (see p55 of our Rethinking Transport report.)

As we state in our transportation report, “new jobs will emerge in a shared mobility transport system serviced by electric and self-driving vehicles,” and by making travel cheaper, robotaxis would increase access to jobs, education and health care.

The widespread adoption of robotaxis mean that the people who lose their jobs might not easily be able to find new jobs nearby, even if there is a net job gain.

In all our publications and work, we have strongly emphasized the need for governments to protect people, not incumbent industries, businesses or their owners, from the impacts of disruption. A wide array of social policies and programs will need to be tested and implemented, and no one-size-fits-all solution is likely to work in every region. Anticipation and preparation will therefore be essential.

Explore the evidence...

• Up to 5 million jobs may be lost, leading to aggregate income losses of $200 billion per year. (Read more about this in our executive summary on p6 of Rethinking Transportation report) However, these losses can be offset by job gains created from increases in consumer disposable income, productivity and job creation associated with global technology leadership as a result of the Transport-as-a-Service (TaaS) disruption. Resistance to TaaS will ensure these new jobs are created elsewhere in the world but will not avoid the job losses due to the disruption. 
• Disruption of transportation employment statistics (p55 of Rethinking Transportation report.)
  • Job losses from driving will reduce income by $200 billion, but new jobs will emerge.
  • Driving jobs will be stranded by autonomous technology. The U.S. auto industry employs 1.25 million directly and 7.25 million indirectly.
  • Five million jobs nationwide could potentially be lost due to self-driving vehicles (including 3.5 million truck drivers), equating to 3% of the U.S. workforce.
  • At the same time, new jobs will emerge in a shared mobility transport system serviced by electric and self-driving vehicles.

• Time freed from driving could also increase GDP by an additional $1 trillion dollars by 2030. Read more about the social and economic implications of the transportation disruption on p51 of our Rethinking Transportation report.
• Read more about how policymakers can help accelerate the transition to TaaS and soften the blow of job loss that will arise from this disruption on p26 of our report Rethinking Transportation.

• To read more about the potential implications of the transportation disruption, read p49-55 of our report Rethinking Transportation.

Witness the transformation

Policymakers will need to anticipate and mitigate the negative impacts of job losses, including providing social, financial and healthcare safety nets as well as re-training programs for displaced workers, including (but not limited to) drivers and workers in disrupted oil and ICE sectors. (This will be the subject of a future RethinkX paper.). 

Learn more about the future of transport and the disruption led by emerging technologies.

Published on: 12/07/23