As AI tools replace cashiers, editors and a range of routine roles, a pressing question is reshaping career thinking: which jobs will still need humans?
Writing for The Star, journalist Sabine Meuter examines the conditions under which work remains beyond AI's reach, drawing on analysis from Tobias Maier of Germany's Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB).
What counts as a secure job depends partly on definition, Maier says for some it means a permanent position with a large corporation, while for others it includes roles involving public authority such as police officers, teachers or soldiers.
Maier cautions that with any job, it is uncertain whether it will still exist in 40 years with the same profile as today, though he notes this has always been the case and is not necessarily a bad thing in itself.
Social skills such as empathy and emotional intelligence remain in demand because they cannot be replaced by AI, and they play a major role in sectors such as care, education and human resources, Maier says.
Jobs involving customer contact need people, rather than AI, to be done well.
Beyond care and service roles, the report points to physical and creative work as further categories where AI's reach is limited. Trades such as electrical work involve on-site problem-solving in conditions that vary with every job, while creative output depends on cultural judgment and originality that models struggle to replicate.
The world of work is changing at a never-before-seen pace, the report notes, with technology particularly AI , now able to perform many activities people have long carried out, from retail cashiers replaced by self-service checkouts to editors replaced by AI tools.
For workers planning their careers, deciding which direction to take is a hard one, with many asking what constitutes a crisis-proof job. The report does not offer a simple answer, but frames caring, building and creating as the broad domains where human presence remains the point of the work, not a cost to be engineered away.
