The labor market implications of rapid technological change are vast and uncertain, and so are its political consequences. A potential way to capture the highly dynamic impact of technological change is to rely on perceptions of technology-related job insecurity. However, in order for these perceptions to exert explanatory power, we need to have a thorough understanding of what explains their formation. Thus, after establishing an empirical connection between technological job insecurity and political preferences based on original data from the US, this paper asks the following question: What are the determinants of subjectively perceived employment risks from technological change? Drawing on two original survey sources and using Bayesian Item Response Theory modeling, we show that exposure to modern technologies in the workplace is a strong predictor of subjective risk. In contrast to the view that individuals with high skills and cognitively demanding job tasks are less vulnerable, we find that perceived employment risks increase with the work-related use of complex technologies like programming languages.