A new report in the Business Insider shows the effect of artificial intelligence on the American workforce, specifically in the black community. The report by the consultancy McKinsey showed, without intervention, 4.5 million black jobs could be displaced by 2030.
Black workers are projected to be disproportionately affected by the coming automation due to being overrepresented in fields like office support secretaries, fast-food and service workers, mechanics and other practitioners of production work.
"There is an elevated risk to the African American workforce to modernization, automation, and the global shift that exists in this modern economy," said McKinsey Partner and Co-Author Jason Wright, to Business Insider.
The disproportionate hit to the black community is also looked at as taking an effect on the growing racial wealth gap. The gap has already increased by $54,000 since 1992 — with white people owning disproportionately more homes and less student debt than African Americans.
Some factors that could alleviate the massive job loss is a college education; numbers show while the general black population is 10 percent more at risk for job disruption, the number jumps to 30 percent for African American men without a college degree. According to McKinsey researchers, 28 percent of jobs held by black men without a college degree will see disruption by automation and AI by 2030.
Black women, however, are projected to see a relatively small effect of artificial intelligence in the job market. With black women currently overrepresented in jobs that will see growth in the next decade — like nursing assistants and home health aides — they are projected to lose less jobs than white and Asian Americans of all genders.
"There's a real benefit to the evolution the economy is going through," Wright said to the Business Insider. "Being smart, especially as a person of color, on the unique risk to you is helpful."