The Jobs that
Aren’t -- And Won’t Be
All major activities that serve mankind follow a pattern.
First, large numbers of people are mobilized to provide an in-demand product or
service. Local farmers fed their communities, The general store owner served the
needs the surrounding area. Over
time, advances in technology make it possible to automate the process but not
everyone wanted to automate or could afford to buy it. Those that wanted to,
did, and they become more profitable. They then bought out their competitors
who could no longer keep up. This held true with agriculture, retailing, manufacturing, now financial services, the list goes on.
Historically, technology replaces masses of people needed
under the old system, leaving them behind with only the skills of the past.
What jobs are there for them, individually or en masse, after the transition? In my first book (Imagine the Future -- A Teenager's Guide.....), I wrote that behind every ATM were six new aerobic instructors, You understand.
High volume production jobs were lost to outsourcing or to
technology throughout the land. In manufacturing, when we say high volume
production jobs, most people imagine assembly lines for cars and appliances.
But numerous other industries have also felt the sting of alternative
technologies. The lines at banks that once processed millions of transactions
every day, one client at a time, had a similar effect. Bank branches were everywhere and each
had a small complement of happy, helpful tellers. That they were replaced by
ATMs is no less painful than displaced assembly line workers. (One huge difference was that the tellers usually had better skills than the displaced auto workers who, while working at union scale, brought home an excellent wage. The useful, marketable skills on their résumés qualified many, at best, for work at the local burger joint.
In the 2000s, automation is eliminating tens of thousands of
jobs in areas that historically were high income with positive long-term outlooks, like the financial services industry. Today, sophisticated algorithms created by
software designers make it possible for computers to make buy/sell decisions in
nanoseconds with less risk to the investment company. When the financial markets collapsed in '08, thousands of people were made redundant (laid off, fired) but they expected that they'd be called back as the market rebounded. Not so. In the interim, companies installed the newer decision making software and found that it outperformed its human assets. So, when the market rebounded, 40% fewer people were needed. Companies that were already making bucket loads of profit were now making even more, with lower trading risks to boot.
What is missing in this story is people’s realization that
more and more work at almost any level can be reassigned in one of four ways:
to technology, which replaces human effort; to intellectual insights, which can
replace the need for the product or service to begin with; to low cost labor,
where the first two choices don’t yet apply, or, to a combination of one and
three, where automated technology is operated by low-price labor.
As humanity moves ahead (that’s all of us), our usefulness
as purveyors diminishes. Increasingly, the things we do and the material things
we want are being inexorably replaced, leaving us with a myriad of problems,
social, economic, philosophical and moral, to list a few.
Should we invest in our educations as we currently do,
taking on massive debt in the process, only to accept positions at the local
Apple Store? Should we earn the degrees in the hope that what we learn will
give us the “AHA!” moment in which we create the next big thing and thereby
insure our financial success?
Ask yourself (and your friends) "If the jobs of the future can by and large be designed for
automatons, what use are we?"
There are many good answers to that question. I have some of
them but I elect not to share them at this time. I want you to think about your own answers. That’s no simple
assignment but it is worth the effort. My giving you some answers would be a
disservice.
First, you really do need to give this some serious thought. If I share my thoughts, you might take it as a signal that you don't have to.
Second, you should pass this along and start a dialogue about it. it matters less at my age than yours, and if you're married (divorced) with children, this question is critical, both from in economic sense and in a social sense.
Finally, consider this. Within a decade (you do the math), there will be some 3.4 BILLION people vying for some 2.4 BILLION jobs. You will be one of them. Your spouse (Ex) is another. How about your kids? Get the picture?
In my next blog, I’ll discuss distribution.
