When typewriters were new, typing was a marketable skill that could land you a job. If the main difference between candidates was that one could type, it's highly likely that employers would opt to hire the candidate who could type. Typing allowed for a higher level of efficiency and reduced the need for support staff.
Today, we're at a similar crossroads for scripting and other forms of basic automation. In the same way that it'd be redundant for an applicant to list typing (50 wpm) as a skill when applying for a professional job, it'll soon be expected that every applicant will have a basic proficiency in programming.
Typing was once seen as a difficult skill to acquire, but now it's fully expected that employees will be able to type for themselves. The same will be true for basic programming.