By 2025, robots will take over about half of the activities people are paid to do, and Chinese and Indian employees will be the worst hit worldwide by this inevitable shift to workplace robots and automation.

The prediction was made by the McKinsey Global Institute in a report entitled "A future that works: automation, employment and productivity." The report analyzes the automation potential of the global economy, covering all sectors in over 50 countries.

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Robots will be responsible for doing jobs that would have earned human employees close to $12 trillion in salaries and wages, said the report.

At a global level, automation will render 1.1 billlion persons either unemployed or unemployable. The report said China and India will account for most of these potential unemployment victims because of their huge populations that come close to a combined three billion persons.

The report also showed that jobs most susceptible to automation are physical or labor intensive ones. In the services sector, the hardest hit by automation will be data collection and processing, mostly reflected in manufacturing, accommodation and retail trade.

The report said robots and computers perform a range of routine physical work activities better and more cheaply than humans. Machines are also increasingly capable of accomplishing activities that include cognitive capabilities once considered too difficult to automate successfully, such as sensing emotion or driving.

The report argues automation could raise productivity growth globally by 0.8 percent to 1.4 percent. It noted, however, it will take decades for automation's harmful effects on employment to make itself felt.

This inevitable consequence will make "mass labor redeployment" a priority for companies to think about, rather than mass unemployment, said Joe Ngai, managing director of McKinsey's Hong Kong office.

Because of tepid productivity growth worldwide, automation technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are seen as by large business firms as providing a needed boost to economic growth.

TagsRobots, McKinsey Global Institute, A future that works: automation, employment and productivity, Productivity Growth, Artificial Intelligence, AI, Robotics, Machine Learning