finance&football

By Davud Muminovic

Remember Typists? The Loss of a Once-Important Job
Aunt Slava, my mom’s colleague, was a lovely woman with blonde hair, a bit plump, and always smiling. In my reckless youth, even in her late fifties or early sixties, I saw her as a kind older lady.

Her job was to type texts. Sometimes someone would call her on the phone, and she would quickly and expertly type it into her outdated electric typewriter. That machine, just a few years earlier, was a marvel of Yugoslav technology, but it was already falling behind as computers became more popular.

Aunt Slava wasn’t worried about her work becoming scarce, or that younger colleagues no longer used her services—they instead tinkered with computers and wrote their own texts. She would proudly exclaim, then lament the unrestrained youth, whenever she found a typo in official documents because a “professional” hadn’t typed the text correctly.

But she wasn’t too troubled; she was simply waiting for her last working days. Sometimes she’d knit at work, passing the time while looking forward to riding into the sunset into well-earned retirement.

Along with Aunt Slava, a once highly valued profession in the job market disappeared forever — a reminder that technological progress, like the upcoming wave of AI automation, can cause entire job categories to vanish almost overnight.

The job of a typist was once highly esteemed. In the 1940s, typists were popular positions in publishing, administrative, and clerical industries. But technology made this profession obsolete—and it wasn’t the only one.

What AI Brings: Which Jobs Will Disappear First in the Coming Years

The world is rapidly changing as new technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) shift the business landscape. Many jobs that were once common and crucial have disappeared, and most people hardly remember them anymore.

Consider the now-vanished role of the lift operator, once essential in buildings and now only a distant memory.
Or what about telephone operators? They used to connect long-distance calls and manage communications before digital exchanges replaced their role. By the early 1980s, this important position was already outdated.

How Will the Job Market Look in 10, 20, or 50 Years?

Advances in technology and AI development will undoubtedly make some jobs and roles within companies completely obsolete. According to Business Insider, here are some of the jobs most at risk in the future:

• Train Conductors
  Train technology is becoming smarter and requires fewer operators. With automation advancing, traditional train conductors may be phased out, though some might transition to managing automated systems rather than lose their jobs altogether.
• Taxi Drivers
  Ride-sharing apps like Uber and the rise of autonomous vehicles (currently only in the U.S.) threaten traditional taxi driver jobs.
• Warehouse Workers
  Robots with advanced sensors are being deployed in warehouses. Recent announcements, such as Amazon’s plan to cut 16,000 jobs, highlight how quickly this trend is progressing.
• Cashiers
  Self-checkout systems are now common across retail stores — from supermarkets to electronics shops. Experts predict that by 2030, most cashiers will be replaced by automated checkouts.
• Pre-Press Technicians
  As digital publishing grows, more authors are using self-publishing platforms. Companies like Amazon facilitate bypassing traditional publishing, reducing the need for pre-press roles.
• Fast Food Workers
  Automated kiosks and robotic chefs are increasingly used in fast-food restaurants, taking orders, cooking, and serving food — all with minimal human involvement.
• Sports Referees
  AI-supported systems like video assistant referees (VAR) in football are changing officiating. Human errors will become less acceptable, and roles like line judges in tennis are already fading away.
• Telemarketers
  AI algorithms can now make sales calls autonomously, often without the customer realizing they’re speaking to a machine.
• Translators
  AI translation tools are improving rapidly, capable of understanding language nuances that once required human expertise. As machine learning advances, the demand for human translators may decline, especially for complex texts.

What About the Millions of People Who Work Hard and Earn Honest Livings?

Will they, like Aunt Slava, enjoy a peaceful retirement after decades of work, or face a bleak future dominated by AI? Once we looked forward to a future powered by technological progress, but many now fear the rapid expansion of AI could lead to widespread job losses and economic upheaval.