New Technologies and the Job Losses which may/may not follow

[Ten oz]

It is unfortunate how tied to money humans have made everything. As a thought experiment tried to imagine contructing the best cabin I could imagine. Free of any concerns about costs. I was not able to do it. I continuously caught myself considering various materials as impractical becasue of their cost. While certian key infrastructure decisions seemed almost impossible to make without considering future or reoccurring costs. Money governs all. The greatest technological discovery in the world will only be cared about if it can make someone lots of money.

 

As technology has made many things easier for humans we have made things needless difficult for ourselves. Soon as we find away to relieve 2 hours of work from our 8hr work day we are arguing about how to to fill that 2 hours with more work.

The issue isn't really Jobs; it is money. Technology easing human labor would be a universally acknowledged great thing if not for the income loss to workers. Perhaps in the furture less people will work. Perhaps pay will be higher to accomidate that. Perhaps humans will be free to invent, study, and be altruistic.

[swansont]

I get an error message from that link; data not available.Anyway, unless one takes into account how many in that population rise retire and how many are too young to work, your simplistic calculation is invalid.

Right - you need to look at the population of people who would potentially be working. If the population went up by ~130 million, but a quarter are kids+retirees, then the worker population only went up by ~97 million. Compare that number with the 82 million new jobs, and you would see the employment fraction has increased.

[EdEarl]

Right - you need to look at the population of people who would potentially be working. If the population went up by ~130 million, but a quarter are kids+retirees, then the worker population only went up by ~97 million. Compare that number with the 82 million new jobs, and you would see the employment fraction has increased.

My contention was that automation causes job loss, not unemployment. Fewer jobs per capita producing an abundance of goods and services is enough for me. Although, there could be more jobs if the very young, infirm, and old people could afford care workers, whether or not there are people to fill the jobs is another issue. In the past, families cared for such people, but now families abandon them, and that's another issue.

[EdEarl]

I'll support my data that there have been job losses with this article about underemployment of recent college graduates.

 

 

You can spend a long, long time arguing about precisely how bad freshly minted grads have it these days and why. But for now, let's stick to broad strokes. In its recent chartbook on youth joblessness, the Economic Policy Institute reported that roughly 8.5 percent of college graduates between the ages of 21 and 24 were unemployed. That figure is based on a 12-month average between April 2013 and March 2014, so it’s not a perfect snapshot of the here and now. Still, it tells us that the post-collegiate job market, just like the rest of the labor market, certainly isn’t nearly back to normal. (For comparison, the unemployment rate for all college grads over the age of 25 is 3.3 percent, which is also still higher than normal.) More worrisomely, the EPI finds that a total of 16.8 percent of new grads are “underemployed,” meaning they’re either jobless and hunting for work; working part-time because they can’t find a full-time job; or want a job, have looked within the past year, but have now given up on searching.

Just for grins I divided job loss since 1964 (44.7 million) that I calculated previously by the current population (319.3 million), which is almost 14%. That is close to the 16.8% underemployment rate reported in the above article. It's a stretch, but the two aren't unrelated.

Edited December 23, 2014 by EdEarl

[michel123456]

I used to serve in a statistical department of the UK Civil Service. The statistics we were required to produce, were to put it mildly, not always entirely scientifically based.

!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Can you give more info on this? Or at least give a third party info that supports this?

[swansont]

I'll support my data that there have been job losses with this article about underemployment of recent college graduates.

 

Just for grins I divided job loss since 1964 (44.7 million) that I calculated previously by the current population (319.3 million), which is almost 14%. That is close to the 16.8% underemployment rate reported in the above article. It's a stretch, but the two aren't unrelated.

 

A dearth of jobs after an economic downturn is what always happens; I linked to a graph that shows this. You have yet to provide evidence that this is caused by technology advances. So stats about the tough job market after the second largest economic downturn in the past century shows nothing to support your thesis. You haven't even shown correlation, much less causality.

 

BTW, AFAICT nobody is contending that automation eliminates jobs. It's whether there is a net loss of jobs occurring due to technology that is in question.

[EdEarl]

 

A dearth of jobs after an economic downturn is what always happens; I linked to a graph that shows this. You have yet to provide evidence that this is caused by technology advances. So stats about the tough job market after the second largest economic downturn in the past century shows nothing to support your thesis. You haven't even shown correlation, much less causality.

 

BTW, AFAICT nobody is contending that automation eliminates jobs. It's whether there is a net loss of jobs occurring due to technology that is in question.

I don't know of any evidence, except to track thousands of case histories of affected people, enough to be statistically significant. If such a database exists, I don't have either knowledge of or access to it. Even with that kind of data, it might not be possible to prove the case. I'd like to point out that lack of evidence that automation is removing jobs from the market, is not proof automation creates more jobs that it replaces. Increasing population increases demand in housing and all other markets, simultaneously automation occurs, and other factors such as minimum wage, average wage, weather, markets, climate change, etc.

 

IMO understanding the limits, for example when automation can do all work for us, gives us a data point that we can understand, and that information helps clarify what our current policies should be to help the change from where we are to where we will be. People who do not try to understand where we are headed include climate change deniers. Focusing only on short term goals can lead to very undesirable consequences, but we can mediate undesirable effects, at least sometimes. Things will unfold in time, and we will be surprised at how fast they occur, if my experience with computers between 1970 and today gives any insight into the evolution of automation. I remember once saying, "I'll never need more than a 20MB disk."

 

Changes that accumulated in computers as Moore's Law predicted have been astonishing, and several automation projects have been announced viable since Watson. I suspect it is a trend. One of the most recent ones claims AI vision processing is comparable in quality to primates. That capability is now a module that other programs can use. Processing speech has been available for a while. Even without sentience, automated machines can do many things that only people have done in the past.

 

I don't know how fast these things will occur.

[swansont]

I don't know of any evidence, except to track thousands of case histories of affected people, enough to be statistically significant. If such a database exists, I don't have either knowledge of or access to it. Even with that kind of data, it might not be possible to prove the case. I'd like to point out that lack of evidence that automation is removing jobs from the market, is not proof automation creates more jobs that it replaces. Increasing population increases demand in housing and all other markets, simultaneously automation occurs, and other factors such as minimum wage, average wage, weather, markets, climate change, etc.

 

Again, saying that automation removes jobs is not in contention here. I agree that automation removes jobs. What I have said a number of times is that the original claim is that technology removes jobs, so you continue to argue a straw man position. Automation and technology are not the same thing. A cell phone is not an example of automation.

 

When an economy contracts and less money is spent, people get laid off. Production doesn't require as many workers, you don't need as many sales clerks, etc. Is it really hard to understand that you can have job losses without it being the fault of technology displacing workers? Is there some part of basic economics that is wrong here?

 

 

IMO understanding the limits, for example when automation can do all work for us, gives us a data point that we can understand, and that information helps clarify what our current policies should be to help the change from where we are to where we will be.

I don't concede that such a scenario is possible, nor that we are anywhere close to where it might be approximately true.

 

People who do not try to understand where we are headed include climate change deniers.

Two huge flaws in this analogy is that climate change has actual evidence to support it, and that the deniers don't engage in scientific discussion. You admit you have no evidence too support your position. That does not put you on the side of the scientists in an AGW analogy. Rather the opposite.

 

Focusing only on short term goals can lead to very undesirable consequences, but we can mediate undesirable effects, at least sometimes. Things will unfold in time, and we will be surprised at how fast they occur, if my experience with computers between 1970 and today gives any insight into the evolution of automation. I remember once saying, "I'll never need more than a 20MB disk."

 

Changes that accumulated in computers as Moore's Law predicted have been astonishing, and several automation projects have been announced viable since Watson. I suspect it is a trend. One of the most recent ones claims AI vision processing is comparable in quality to primates. That capability is now a module that other programs can use. Processing speech has been available for a while. Even without sentience, automated machines can do many things that only people have done in the past.

 

I don't know how fast these things will occur.

How many jobs are there that require computer skills? How many jobs are there that would have simply been impossible to do without modern computers?

[EdEarl]

Two huge flaws in this analogy is that climate change has actual evidence to support it, and that the deniers don't engage in scientific discussion. You admit you have no evidence too support your position. That does not put you on the side of the scientists in an AGW analogy. Rather the opposite.

 

How many jobs are there that require computer skills? How many jobs are there that would have simply been impossible to do without modern computers?

"Rather the opposite," I don't disagree.

"How many jobs are there that would have simply been impossible to do without modern computers?" Many.

[Phi for All]

Part of this argument assumes the jobs losses are bad. I've had a few jobs where, in hindsight, I wish had been lost before I got there.

 

And more businesses fail than succeed, usually for a good reason. I guess you have to ask yourself if a crap job is better than no job, or would you be out looking for something better if you didn't have this crap job?

[michel123456]

If a private company can use a technology for reducing its number of employees, the company will use this technology.

A simple example is self-service at gas stations. in this case, technology will be an instrument. The cause is not technology, the cause is that employees cost a lot of money. If you want to reduce costs, the first thing to do is to reduce the number of employees. if technology can help, technology will be used.

 

On the other hand, technology can also produce jobs.

But the former employee at the gas station will not become an IT professional at Texaco.

Governments are the ones who have to manage the gap, giving some income to the unemployee and creating schools for the new IT.

Another way for governments to fill the gap is very simply to create useless jobs. This part of useless jobs can reach a huge percentage (50%, 70%) of the administrative staff.

IMHO statistics alone do not help very much if one wants to get an accurate image of the situation.

[swansont]

If a private company can use a technology for reducing its number of employees, the company will use this technology.

A simple example is self-service at gas stations. in this case, technology will be an instrument. The cause is not technology, the cause is that employees cost a lot of money. If you want to reduce costs, the first thing to do is to reduce the number of employees. if technology can help, technology will be used.

 

But now it becomes that much cheaper to run a gas station, so you can open up more of them. They still employ cashiers, and lots of them now act as convenience stores.

 

On the other hand, technology can also produce jobs.

But the former employee at the gas station will not become an IT professional at Texaco.

Governments are the ones who have to manage the gap, giving some income to the unemployee and creating schools for the new IT.

Another way for governments to fill the gap is very simply to create useless jobs. This part of useless jobs can reach a huge percentage (50%, 70%) of the administrative staff.

IMHO statistics alone do not help very much if one wants to get an accurate image of the situation.

 

Why not?

 

Yes, the government should provide training assistance, but that's an issue of political will. If that assistance was there to begin with, one would not have to settle for a job pumping gas in the first place. But that's a separate issue from whether technology creates jobs. If it didn't, there would not be any IT jobs to train for in the first place.

 

Or maybe the former gas-pumper gets a job installing solar panels, a job that was all but nonexistent a decade ago, but is much more prevalent now, owing to technology advances.

[ajb]

I am not sure if it is really due to technology or what, but for sure in my home area and the surrounding regions there was a lot of heavy industry, mines and factories. That has now gone. For a lot of people that is no great problem, there are more office type jobs. However, those of poor education who would have at one time just gone to the steel works, the railways, docks, or some other factory are now with little hope of employment. At one time you could leave one factory job in the morning and find another one by the afternoon. Not so today.

 

I do not think this is really due to new technology, that has opened other jobs such as working at a call centre. However, these new jobs are not so plentiful and don't suit everyone. Large area of my home land are rather depressive places now that at one time would have been buzzing with engineers and ailed tradesmen.

Edited December 24, 2014 by ajb

[EdEarl]

I think it's also worth looking at the quality of jobs replaced with those that replace them.

 

If the economy loses 10 jobs working in a coal mine and gains 9 desk jobs, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

We also need to examine the quality of life and other factors. The automobile has improved the quality of life in some ways, but the oil used to move it is adversely affecting climate. If the automobile had stayed small as the Model T, instead of growing into a Hum-Vee and other heavy vehicles, we could have avoided emitting quite as much CO2. Moreover, Detroit sold many vehicles based on styling rather than technology improvements; thus, one might argue that jobs in the auto industry have not been entirely the result of automobile technology. Then there are things like the technology that led to tanning salons, which increase the chance of one getting cancer, IMO little or no positive value.

 

So technology creates jobs, often ones that people hate, and sometimes that are bad for the environment. Can we do better?

[swansont]

 

So technology creates jobs, often ones that people hate, and sometimes that are bad for the environment. Can we do better?

 

Without technology just about all you have is manual labor. How much love is there for that?

[Dekan]

If the automobile had stayed small as the Model T, instead of growing into a Hum-Vee and other heavy vehicles, we could have avoided emitting quite as much CO2.

The Model-T's body was admittedly small. But - the car's engine was far from small. It was a massive 2.9 litre job!

 

Yet, this incredibly huge engine only managed to yield a top speed of 42-45 mph for the Model-T. So it was clearly very inefficient. Such inefficiency must've caused it to emit a lot of fumes from its exhaust pipe, in the form of wastefully unburned petroleum vapour, and CO2 gas.

 

Therefore the old Model-T is perhaps, not a good example to choose, from a modern Green anti-CO2 viewpoint.

 

 

[swansont]

Not even anti-CO2, just anti-pollution in general. Modern engines are much more efficient. The model T didn't get great gas mileage, even with it being small

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T

[acord]

Right - you need to look at the population of people who would potentially be working. If the population went up by ~130 million, but a quarter are kids+retirees, then the worker population only went up by ~97 million. Compare that number with the 82 million new jobs, and you would see the employment fraction has increased.

Only that it would be difficult to calculate how many retirees would be in the mid-term future. This is because work practices are changing and people may decide to work, at least part time, well past the 'normal' retirement age.

[swansont]

Only that it would be difficult to calculate how many retirees would be in the mid-term future. This is because work practices are changing and people may decide to work, at least part time, well past the 'normal' retirement age.

 

You can still estimate it though, and do better than assuming that the number is zero.

[acord]

 

You can still estimate it though, and do better than assuming that the number is zero.

The number is unlikely to be zero, but the matter is more complicated because some people will be working part time, whilst retired from their ordinary job, others may have two or three different jobs (like my plumber who is also working as a biochemist -true story!). And, because we are talking about the future, we should also take into account novel ways of market and job development, such as some futuristic suggestions that societies can exist without money: http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/03/26/beyond-money/

[swansont]

The number is unlikely to be zero, but the matter is more complicated because some people will be working part time, whilst retired from their ordinary job, others may have two or three different jobs (like my plumber who is also working as a biochemist -true story!). And, because we are talking about the future, we should also take into account novel ways of market and job development, such as some futuristic suggestions that societies can exist without money: http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/03/26/beyond-money/

 

 

We weren't talking about the future, though, in that example. It was about the past, and the objection was that the original proposal set that number at zero. Also, the graph I cited was the % of people who were employed, not the number of jobs that existed, so it isn't over-counting people who hold two jobs.

[iNow]

Further to swansonts points, the BLS is incredibly strong and consistently accurate with these sorts of forecasts. It is not so much guess work, but instead projections based on actual employment data from actual employers around the country coupled with incredibly accurate population data.

 

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/labor-force-projections-to-2022-the-labor-force-participation-rate-continues-to-fall.htm

Edited January 10, 2015 by iNow

[EdEarl]

The Model-T's body was admittedly small. But - the car's engine was far from small. It was a massive 2.9 litre job!

 

Yet, this incredibly huge engine only managed to yield a top speed of 42-45 mph for the Model-T. So it was clearly very inefficient. Such inefficiency must've caused it to emit a lot of fumes from its exhaust pipe, in the form of wastefully unburned petroleum vapour, and CO2 gas.

 

Therefore the old Model-T is perhaps, not a good example to choose, from a modern Green anti-CO2 viewpoint.

 

 

I only suggested keeping cars the size of the Model T, not keeping the Model T technology, which is clearly inefficient and unreliable. In fact, even smaller is more economical, e.g., Elio.