Automated vehicles won't be taking truckers' jobs anytime soon: study

Truck drivers can put the brakes on their worst automation fears. Robots are not getting behind the wheel and stealing the jobs of long-haul drivers anytime soon, according to two government experts, offering a contrarian view to some of the biggest names in tech and a presidential candidate. In a study published in the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Maury Gittleman, a research economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Kristen Monaco, an associate commissioner in the Office of Compensation and Working Conditions also at BLS, argue that there are three main reasons why the threat of automation, robots and AI to truck drivers is more fear-mongering than fearsome. "Looking at the data, we believe that, while the risk of job loss from automation is very real, the projections that often get touted are overstated," the two penned in Harvard Business Review Wednesday. The projections they're referring to are the elimination of some 2-3 million truck driving jobs, and one that recently got a boost by presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who retweeted Tuesday an article on trucking automation by Business Insider that perpetuated the projection in question.