Robots are taking over our jobs. A 2013 Oxford study estimates that artificial intelligence (AI) will swallow up about 47% of all employment in the United States in the next 20 years.
But there are a few safe bastions left for humans — one of them is nursing.
The Oxford study calculated that nurses have less than a 1% chance of being automated. That's because nurses have to deal with other people, care for others, and have to solve problems under a lot of pressure.
"If you want to become a nurse — and that's for men and women — that's a great profession right now," Jerry Kaplan, author of "Humans Need Not Apply: A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence," told Tech Insider.
Kaplan's not the only who thinks nursing would be a great career choice for people looking to avoid the coming hoard of robot workers.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics identified nursing as one of the fastest growing professions. The BLS estimates that registered nurses employment will increase by 19% from 2012 to 2022, a faster than average increase. For nurse practitioners, who can provide primary care and write medications, it's almost twice the rate at about 33%.
Here's the report from the BLS:
Nursing is more than just a safe career bet against automation, it's also a growing field with lots of opportunities — nursing shortages have come and go, but the current shortage is expected to grow far worse.
According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, many problems are compounding the nursing shortage. There aren't enough faculty members teaching nursing, many nurses are nearing retirement, and aging baby boomers are putting a huge strain on hospitals.
For those too squeamish for hospitals — or who have heard one to many poop stories from the nurses they know — Toby Walsh, a computer scientist at the National Information and Communications Technology Research in Australia, told Tech Insider the most robot-immune careers are ones where employees have to be creative and be experts at interpersonal relationships.
His advice for a robot-immune career? "Go into the most people-facing, artistic, creative places that you can think of," Walsh told Tech Insider. "The people who are in the most people-facing, sociological, empathetic jobs are going to be people."
