By Charles Pauka 

Up to 16 per cent of Australians believe their current role will be made redundant by a robot in the next five years, according to Airtasker’s latest Future of Work study.

A study by research firm Pureprofile, which polled a representative sample of 1,003 Australians, also found that 71 per cent of the population believe the rise of the machines will replace more jobs than they create.

The data underscores the disparity around the fear of automation and actual job growth. ABS data (2006, 2016) shows that despite the rise of various efficiency driving technologies over the past decade, total jobs have continued to grow.

Meanwhile, almost one in ten Australians indicated that they are leveraging the Sharing Economy to earn extra income. The number of Australians indicating this nearly doubled from the result seen in Airtasker’s 2016 Future of Work study.

“There seems to be some fear in Australia around machines replacing jobs, and this is the first study that quantifies it,” Airtasker CEO Tim Fung said.

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This story first appeared in Transport and Logistics and News.