Is any job safe from technological advancements? If not, what will happen to societies if mass unemployment ensues?

Have Your Say Feb. 11, 2013 - 06:19AM JST ( 10 )

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tkoind2Feb. 11, 2013 - 10:53AM JST

The industrial revolution introduced the same problem. But at that time there was a key difference. Technology changed the nature of jobs, but it also created jobs by opening entirely new industries and expansion world wide.

The computer and automation revolution will not do the same. In the first part of it, jobs moved from manufacturing to information and service. But with a net loss in middle class jobs. Just look at Flint Michigan for an example of how that worked out for labor. However, now it is replacing service and information jobs too.

So let's take stock. 1. Manufacturing - gone. 2. Information - going fast. 3. Service - going very fast.

The loss of these jobs will not be replaced as in the industrial revolution. No new jobs are being created. Net loss of jobs across the board is the reality. A declining middle class means that all those smaller companies that feed middle class consumption are also going to go away as the spending dries up. Downstream you have everything from the corner shop to the middle class schools and impact upon everything from health care for exports from small countries world wide being impacted.

The loss of the middle class spending will stall and kill some economies. Or it will result in a global poor labor class ruled over by a tiny global elite. This is what writers have been predicting for a decades and it seems more and more likely to happen.

What can we do? Sadly very little to change the march of technology. But we can change our spending and our working habits. 1. Support companies that support jobs with your spending. Punish those that do not. Just don't buy their goods. If they lay people off, stop buying their things. 2. FInd a way to move your income from big companies that automate to small local companies who will not. If consumers support local business it can start to create jobs and replace the income at risk from bigger companies.

Bottom line, dump the big corporations and create local economies to provide the same goods and services. Support what is pro-worker, avoid what isn't. It will be a nasty fight, but it is our only real option to preserve a middle class.
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FadamorFeb. 11, 2013 - 11:02PM JST

Just look at Flint Michigan for an example of how that worked out for labor.

There are more cars being made today than when Flint, Michigan was in its heyday. Flint, Michigan was a cesspool of inefficiency. "Labor" (a.k.a. the United Auto Workers union) was the prime cause of that inefficiency. They artificially inflated employment rolls in order to make their union stronger, but the the resulting "deadwood" on the factory floors sucked the profitability of the car companies away. When the plants shut down, those artificailly inflated employment rolls turned into artificailly inflated UN-employment rolls.

Manufacturing isn't "gone". It's still alive and well. What's "gone" is the demand for grunts who just know to turn a screw every time a piece moves by on a conveyor belt. There was a nice article last Summer about a metal fabrication company that has been looking for milling machine operators for quite some time, but nobody met the qualifications to operate the new computer-controlled milling machines. So the company went to the local community college and asked for a course to be offered on programming and operating the milling machines. Problem solved. The jobs ARE there though you may need a bit of re-training.
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NessieFeb. 12, 2013 - 12:54AM JST

The oldest profession /

is safe from recession.
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FadamorFeb. 12, 2013 - 01:17AM JST

The oldest profession /

is safe from recession.

Even THAT profession is affected by a recession. Less spending cash means less "partying" with "Baybee Porsche". Of course, if someone makes a really good robotic substitute, even "the oldest profession" might be in trouble.
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tkoind2Feb. 12, 2013 - 02:11AM JST

Fadamore, the level of production in manufacturing, and the pay is not the same as it was before jobs were exported. It is painfully unaware of the history here to suggest that it is. And painfully unaware of the economic realities for blue collar labor in the US to deny that the current situation is not dire for most in manufacturing.

Sure a few jobs may go unfilled due to lack of skills, but who in his or her right mind spends money on education for the rare manufacturing jobs out there? Most people have long since tried to move to other more stable areas. The same now under attack.

Re-training is not going to rebuild a middle class where jobs are not being replaced at the same income levels. There are not enough equal level jobs to take all the lost employees. Training or not.
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tkoind2Feb. 12, 2013 - 02:16AM JST

Denial of the risk and the problem is criminal. We have to recognize that the middle class is under considerable duress. We can apologize all day for the motivations of corporations and politics, but the end is the same, the middle class is in decline. Automation is at the root. Everything from manufacturing to service. The machinist and the travel agent alike are being replaced by technology. And their middle class contributions to society lost.

There is a real cost here.

I remember in 2008 a banker complaining that his client could not sell enough flat screen TVs that year. Yet his company had let go 11,000 jobs in one region alone. While his peer companies, including competitors, had done similar lay offs. And of course it was in the news every day, so all workers knew of the risk to jobs as a result of 2008.

Yet these bone headed bankers and corporate leaders sat scratching their heads over why sales were down in the same period. As if some magical middle class of consumers, unscathed and unworried about the economy would still spend away on these products.

They only see their objectives and they make wrong assumptions about consumers. In the end, corporate greed and inconsideration for working people actually takes money out of their pockets. As a very wise economist said, we need 5 million middle class guys. Not 5 millionaires to help improve the economy. That is an absolute truth. One that this trend will increasingly validate as it kills off more and more of those middle class incomes.
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semperfiFeb. 12, 2013 - 07:16AM JST

There will always be an abundance of jobs---------------------------- but people will need to make shifts, get the appropriate education ......................the steam engine replaced the horse and buggy, and the car replaced the steam engine...............The technological frontier is growing exponentially ........................... and with it new jobs !!!!!!!!!!
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ramses68Feb. 12, 2013 - 02:16PM JST

While I understand that technology is for the "benefit" of all, I can't help but agree about the shrinking pool of middle class dollars that will be endlessly pumped back into the economy. What I see is cyclical on a global scale. While the American middle class is shrinking and dying, it doesn't matter because the Chinese middle class is growing. Using that as an example... The corporations realize it as an emerging market. Until the costs of labor in China get high enough, then the corporations will move production to the newest, cheapest country, suck at the teat of Chinas consumers until they drain it dry. At this point the new "host" country will have developed economically into a burgeoning middle class, which will have created a "new" emerging market. In essence it is a shell game. Fortunately for the Americans they will continue to slide into a third world status. At some point they will become the newest cheapest country to produce goods, after relaxing labor laws, and environmental/business regulations to what they were a hundred years ago. At that point they stand a chance of business moving back in to take advantage of low wage rates and lack of environmental/business regulation. It will be a dark couple of decades, or maybe a century, but the jobs will come back eventually and we'll be happy to have them available for $.15 an hour and a 16 hr work shift. No worries about the corporations and their millionaires though, as long as they remain vigilant enough to know when emerging markets are too expensive to continue production, they will be able to shift production to somewhere else for cheaper and drain all the dollars out of the "current" middle class economy. As long as they can manage to do that, they should be okay.
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cl400Feb. 12, 2013 - 04:09PM JST

The oldest profession is already affected... did somebody say 'internet porn'? Even teaching English in Japan may not be safe if the technology advancements proposed in Japans Fifa World Cup bid become a reality. Real time translating from and to any language.
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FadamorFeb. 13, 2013 - 12:21AM JST

Automation will always outperform manual labor on repetitive tasks. Automation can run 24/7 if necessary without requiring shift changes. Technology makes automation able to perform even more complex tasks. In economies with a high standard of living, technology/automation will ALWAYS be more cost-effective for manufacturing than manual labor. Those people who felt that they didn't need to educate themselves beyond high school (if they even made it THAT far) because "it wasn't necessary for working at the plant" are now the ones crying about the loss of "middle class" jobs. Their complacency resulted in them being just as in demand as a buggy-whip craftsman. They will HAVE to re-train themselves or become homeless.

I've personally experienced this. While in the navy I was a sonar technician. After getting out, I was hired by GE to repair their sonars in the field. For 8 years I did this, then the Soviet Union collapsed. With the loss of America's biggest submarine threat, the navy was no longer interested in paying top dollar for technical expertise and shifted to a lowest bid strategy when it came to anti-submarine warfare contracts. Our contract was lost to Westinghouse. With the loss of the contracts, thousands of us were laid off from the Ocean & Radar Systems Division. The division was sold to Martin Marietta a few months after the lay-offs. So how did I go from being a Field Engineer for sonar systems to my current job as a network administrator? I had to go back to school and RE-TRAIN. After some courses in System Administration, I was hired by the local school division and I've been doing this job for 15 years now. Technology is great, but I don't see them coming up with a technological solution soon that can handle a work order saying her computer won't turn on, and upon arrival find the power plug for the computer on the floor. Yes, I can build a computer from scratch. No, I can't do it more efficiently than a robotic assembly line could. But for things that AREN'T repetitive, I kick the robot's a$$ in solving the problems.