For only the seventh time since the Great Recession ended, the U.S. added more than 300,000 jobs in February. Across sectors ranging from retail to construction to health care, America’s labor market exhibited the strength that was the envy of the world in the 20th century.

If only the future looked as bright. The reality is that the next 12 years are likely to experience more disruption driven by technology and globalization than the past three decades have. Financial advisors and their clients may or may not prosper, but they and their families won’t be spared.

How this plays out is anyone’s guess. Right now the U.S. economy is near full employment, according to most standard metrics, though skeptics have argued government statistics are understating labor force slack.

Karen Harris, managing director of Bain & Co.’s Macro Trends Group, told attendees at Mauldin Economics’ Strategic Investment Conference (SIC) that 20% to 25% of American workers could find themselves displaced between now and 2030. That translates into 30 million people or more.

If that strikes you as absurdly apocalyptic, consider this minor factoid: U.S. oil production currently exceeds its 2015 peak. Yet the energy industry is producing more oil with 50,000 fewer oil fieldworkers, down 25% from 200,000 in late 2014, thanks to autonomous rigs, drones and other gadgetry. Many of those jobs paid six-figure salaries.

Progress is unrelenting and, as Mauldin himself noted, dishwashers are basically robots. Civilization survived. That said, there is a pervasive sense that socioeconomic change is creating widespread unease.

Offering some context to the coming labor market displacement, Harris pointed out America has experienced similar transitions several times in its history. Over the 40 years starting early in the 20th century, “we lost 1.2 million jobs over 40 years [scaled in today’s terms for the sake of comparison].” During that same period, there were also two world wars and a Great Depression, so there were other factors at work.

Fast-forward to the postwar era. Harris cited the shift between 1970 and 1990 from a manufacturing to a service economy, when “we lost about 0.8 million jobs a year.” Another more recent micro-example is “construction, that boom-bust we saw leading into the financial crisis—about 0.6 million jobs a year.”

Both these transitions were relatively easy to manage for American society. Unfortunately, Harris thinks service sector automation will be a different story, “twice as big, twice as fast,” costing 2.5 million jobs a year.

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