Comparing a published projection with what actually happened is the only real test of the method, and it is possible because every release is archived. The pattern is consistent: direction is usually right, magnitude frequently is not, and the misses cluster where an assumption about technology or a shock did the work rather than demographics.
Paralegals were the textbook case
Document review was the example everyone reached for. It was repetitive, rule-governed, high-volume and expensive, and software genuinely did absorb most of it.
The occupation is projected at 376,200 people in 2024 and 376,800 in 2034 — flat, not gone. What happened is that the automatable part left and the rest stayed: client contact, case management, knowing which document matters and why, and being the person an attorney can ask.
Three more that were written off
Radiologic technologists. Imaging was supposed to be an early casualty. Projected to grow 4.3 per cent to about 237,800.
Travel agents. Written off entirely when booking moved online. Projected to grow 2.2 per cent, having settled into complex, high-value and multi-leg trips that a search box handles badly.
Bank tellers. The classic example, and the one where the prediction was directionally right and badly wrong about pace. Down 12.9 per cent over the coming decade, from 347,400 people — decades after the cash machine arrived.
Where the forecasts did land
Word processors and typists are projected down 36.1 per cent, to about 25,600. Data entry keyers down 25.9 per cent. Those predictions were accurate and then some.
The pattern separating the hits from the misses is clean: the forecasts were right where an occupation’s entire output was a single automatable task, and wrong wherever the job was a bundle of several. Typing is a task. Being a paralegal is not.
Why the misses are systematic rather than unlucky
Scoring a whole occupation assumes it is one thing. Most occupations are five or six things, and the automatable ones leave first while the rest consolidate.
That is the same methodological criticism that took headline automation risk estimates from 47 per cent down to single digits when the analysis moved from occupations to tasks. The forecasts and the risk indices made the same error for the same reason.
What survives is consistent
In every case above, the occupation kept the part requiring judgment, accountability or a relationship, and shed the part that was mechanical. The job title stayed and the content changed.
No exposure score can represent that, because a score attaches to a title and the title is exactly what stays constant while everything underneath it moves.
The uncomfortable half of the good news
An occupation surviving in a changed form still requires the person in it to change. Somebody who was excellent at document review and indifferent at client management is worse off even though “paralegal” is a stable occupation.
Aggregate survival is not individual security, and the aggregate figure is what gets quoted reassuringly. The right question is never whether your occupation survives; it is which of your tasks are the ones that stay.
How to run the check yourself
Take a projection published a decade ago for a year now past, find the same occupation in current employment data, and compare. Every release is archived, so this is a genuinely available exercise rather than a rhetorical one.
Watch for occupational reclassification, which accounts for a share of apparent misses that are really definitional — an occupation split into two is not comparable with its earlier self. And expect the demographic projections to have held up better than anything resting on how fast a technology was adopted.
What this justifies believing
That occupations rarely vanish and frequently change beyond recognition. That the confident write-offs are usually about a task and get reported as being about a job. And that the useful planning question is about your week rather than your title.
It also inoculates against the opposite error. These projections are not guesswork; they were right about typists and data entry, and being right about the clear cases is what makes them worth reading carefully on the unclear ones.
Common questions
Can I check an old projection?
Yes. Every release is archived, so a projection made for a year now past can be compared with what actually happened.
What is the general pattern?
Direction is usually right and magnitude frequently is not, with misses clustering where technology assumptions or shocks did the work.
Which projections held up best?
Demographically driven ones, because the driver was already visible when the projection was made.
What about occupations written off and still here?
That happens in both directions. Adoption is sometimes slower than expected, or the work is harder to automate than it appears from outside.
What is the trap when comparing?
Occupational reclassification. A split or merged occupation is not comparable with its earlier self, and that explains some apparent misses.
Did paralegals get automated away?
No. Projected at 376,200 in 2024 and 376,800 in 2034 — flat, after software genuinely did absorb most of document review.
Which write-offs were accurate?
Word processors and typists, projected down 36.1 per cent to about 25,600, and data entry keyers down 25.9 per cent.
What separates the hits from the misses?
The forecasts were right where an occupation's whole output was one automatable task, and wrong wherever the job was a bundle of several.