Indiana ranks third nationally for jobs exposed to automation

CJS Automation, a UK-based supplier of industrial automation parts, counts 47.57% of Indiana jobs, about 1.4 million positions, in occupations where machines could take over the work. That rate exceeds the national average of 41.47% and puts Indiana third among all states, behind Nevada at 48.79% and South Dakota at 48.65%.

The research looks at one narrow question: whether machines and software can handle routine tasks in stores, restaurants, warehouses, and offices. That differs from studies of artificial intelligence exposure to office work, where Washington and Virginia lead. The Indiana jobs most named in the counts are laborers who move freight and stock by hand at 103,200 positions, fast food and counter workers at 97,290, and retail salespersons at 83,670.

Johnathan Craddock, a director at CJS Automation, said repeated tasks are the ones machines can pick up. "A machine can take that task over, but somebody still has to keep it running and fix it when it stops, which is skilled work," he said. "Indiana has more than a million people who already know those workplaces, so they're the obvious ones to train for it."

Metro areas in the state show different rates. Evansville records 48.36%, Fort Wayne 47.31%, and Indianapolis 45.44%, which covers 477,450 positions. The national list runs from Nevada and South Dakota down through North Dakota at 47.16%, Mississippi at 47.14%, Iowa at 45.59%, Alabama at 45.59%.. [wait, Alabama 45.39%]

The figures come from Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data for May 2025, the most recent set available, paired with automation probability scores from The Future of Employment, a 2013 University of Oxford study by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne that rated 702 occupations. Jobs scored above 70% probability were marked high risk.