The Rise of Knowledge Workers Is Accelerating Despite the Threat of Automation

In the past three decades, the number of jobs for knowledge workers has never been rising as quickly as it is right now. About 31 million people had nonroutine cognitive jobs, what is often called "knowledge work," consisting of varied intellectual tasks such as professional, managerial or technical occupations. Just under 30 million people had jobs that consisted primarily of routine manual work--on assembly lines or in warehouses, doing physical tasks day after day. About 30 million people had jobs consisting of routine office work--bookkeepers, filing clerks, bank tellers and so on--work that doesn't involve much physical activity but is highly routine and doesn't necessarily require high levels of knowledge. A fourth, smaller group, did nonroutine manual tasks, such as many service occupations.