[sudo-discuss] Fwd: Automation Alone Isn't Killing Jobs - NYTimes.com

Sun Apr 6 09:49:00 PDT 2014

Isn't that what the army is for?

-steve

On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 8:00 AM, Romy Snowyla <romy at snowyla.com> wrote:

> Well I'm a software engineer now & I love learning .. I'm good at book
> learning & am an autodidact so I don't think things are so bad for me in
> the future
>
> But what about the rest of the job market?
> I've pondered this over the years. Can you retrain factory workers to be
> tech workers very easily? Some people with experience tell me no
>
> Interesting article
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> *From:* Romy Snowyla <romy at snowyla.com>
> *Date:* April 5, 2014 at 11:08:50 PM PDT
> *To:* Romy Ilano <romy at snowyla.com>
> *Subject:* *Automation Alone Isn't Killing Jobs - NYTimes.com
> <http://NYTimes.com>*
>
>
>
> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/business/automation-alone-isnt-killing-jobs.html
>
> Automation Alone Isn't Killing Jobs
>
> Although the labor market report on Friday showed modest job growth,
> employment opportunities remain stubbornly low<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS12300001>in the United States, giving new prominence to the old notion that
> automation throws people out of work.
>
> Back in the 19th century, steam power and machinery took away many
> traditional jobs, though they also created new ones. This time around,
> computers, smart software and robots are seen as the culprits. They seem to
> be replacing many of the remaining manufacturing jobs and encroaching on
> service-sector jobs, too.
>
> Driverless vehicles and drone aircraft are no longer science fiction, and
> over time, they may eliminate millions of transportation jobs. Many other
> examples of automatable jobs are discussed in "The Second Machine Age," a
> book by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, and in my own book, "Average
> Is Over." The upshot is that machines are often filling in for our smarts,
> not just for our brawn -- and this trend is likely to grow.
>
> How afraid should workers be of these new technologies? There is reason to
> be skeptical of the assumption that machines will leave humanity without
> jobs. After all, history has seen many waves of innovation and automation,
> and yet as recently as 2000, the rate of unemployment was a mere 4 percent.
> There are unlimited human wants, so there is always more work to be done.
> The economic theory of comparative advantage suggests that even unskilled
> workers can gain from selling their services, thereby liberating the more
> skilled workers for more productive tasks.
>
> Nonetheless, technologically related unemployment -- or, even worse, the
> phenomenon of people falling out of the labor force altogether because of
> technology -- may prove a tougher problem this time around.
>
> Labor markets just aren't as flexible these days for workers, especially
> for men at the bottom end of the skills distribution. Through much of the
> 20th century, workers moved out of agriculture and into manufacturing jobs.
> A high school diploma and a basic willingness to work were often enough, at
> least for white men, because the technologies of those times often relied
> on accompanying manual labor.
>
> Many of the new jobs today are in health care and education, where
> specialized training and study are required. Across the economy, a college
> degree is often demanded where a high school degree used to suffice. It's
> now common for a fire chief<http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/10/27/college-degrees-increasingly-help-firefighters-get-ahead>to be expected to have a master's degree, and to perform a broader variety
> of business-related tasks that were virtually unheard-of in earlier
> generations. All of these developments mean a disadvantage for people who
> don't like formal education, even if they are otherwise very talented. It's
> no surprise that current unemployment has been concentrated
> <http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/yes-even-young-college-graduates-have-low-unemployment/>among those with lower education levels.
>
> There is also a special problem for some young men, namely those with
> especially restless temperaments. They aren't always well-suited to the new
> class of service jobs, like greeting customers or taking care of the aged,
> which require much discipline or sometimes even a subordination of will.
> The law is yet another source of labor market inflexibility: The number of
> jobs covered by occupational licensing continues to rise and is almost
> one-third of the work force <http://www.nber.org/papers/w14308>. We don't
> need such laws for, say, barbers or interior designers, although they are
> commonly on the books.
>
> Many expanding economic sectors are not very labor-intensive, be they tech
> fields like online retailing or even new mining and extraction industries.
> That means it's harder for the rate of job creation to keep up with the
> rate of job destruction, because a given amount of economic growth isn't
> bringing as many jobs.
>
> A new paper
> <http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/bpea/papers/2014/are-longterm-unemployed-margins-labor-market>by Alan B. Krueger, Judd Cramer and David Cho of Princeton has documented
> that the nation now appears to have a permanent class of long-term
> unemployed, who probably can't be helped much by monetary and fiscal
> policy. It's not right to describe these people as "thrown out of work by
> machines," because the causes involve complex interactions of technology,
> education and market demand. Still, many people are finding this new world
> of work harder to navigate.
>
> Sometimes, the problem in labor markets takes the form of underemployment<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/your-money/freelancers-piece-together-a-living-in-the-temp-economy.html>rather than outright joblessness. Many people, especially the young, end up
> with part-time and temporary service jobs -- or perhaps a combination of
> them. A part-time retail worker, for example, might also write for a
> friend's website and walk dogs for wealthier neighbors. These workers often
> aren't climbing career ladders that build a brighter or more secure future.
>
> Many of these labor market problems were brought on by the financial
> crisis and the collapse of market demand. But it would be a mistake to
> place all the blame on the business cycle. Before the crisis, for example,
> business executives and owners didn't always know who their worst workers
> were, or didn't want to engage in the disruptive act of rooting out and
> firing them. So long as sales were brisk, it was easier to let matters lie.
> But when money ran out, many businesses had to make the tough decisions --
> and the axes fell. The financial crisis thus accelerated what would have
> been a much slower process.
>
> Subsequently, some would-be employers seem to have discriminated against
> workers who were laid off in the crash. These judgments weren't always
> fair, but that stigma isn't easily overcome, because a lot of employers in
> fact had reason to identify and fire their less productive workers.
>
> In a nutshell, what we're facing isn't your grandfather's unemployment
> problem. It does have something to do with modern technology, and it will
> be with us for some time.
>
> *TYLER COWEN is professor of economics at George Mason University.*
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>
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>

-- 
-steve
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