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Looking at current uk employment numbers[1] , it seems that healthcare , education accommodation and food services count as 23% of the economy. But : 1. Will

by minthd 11y ago

Looking at current uk employment numbers[1] , it seems that healthcare , education accommodation and food services count as 23% of the economy. But : 1. Will they grow under new conditions ? These sectors historically didn't enjoy more productivity due to technology. Economists called this "baumol's disease". But this is changing. We're seeing higher education and maybe some lower education being automated. In japan we saw a robotic hotel, there's plenty of efforts to automate the food industry(both making and serving food), and in healthcare we're on the way to become much more effective at a fast rate with many(hundreds of genetic treatments in clinical trials,great improvements in targeted cancer therapies, artificial pancreases and continuous glucose monitoring are on the way to solve diabetes , etc ,etc) . 2. How much more can they grow ? Will said growth be enough to stop job decline in other sectors ? All those sectors grew due to stuff like cheap credit, degree inflation, more expandable income, growing country budgets, etc. But will those conditions continue to be true in a world with a lot of unemployment in other sectors - much more than we saw in the past ? Also - all those three sectors are 23% of the economy. We're talking about 40% of jobs at risk due to automation in 20 years. So those sectors would have to double/triple themselves to compensate. Is this realistic ? [1]http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/bus-register/business-register-employment-survey/2013-provisional/rft-table-1.xls http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/bus-register/business-register...

toyg 11y ago
> 1. Will they grow under new conditions ? Some conditions don't change. An OAP with limited mobility will always require assistance day-to-day, and it's the sort of thing robots are really bad at. OAPs are also growing in number, as life expectation increases. Another one: you will always need someone to help give birth - in fact, as hospitals are deemed too expensive and scaled back, we will likely need more nurses, since home-births stop them from sharing their time between patients. Again, this will not be touched by automation. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples. >2. How much more can they grow ? I think that's more a function of our social organisation than technology. The real question is basically "how can we pay these people?" -- morality and common sense tell us that a lot of these activities should not be linked to profit, but that is economically challenging unless we rethink how money is created and distributed. > We're talking about 40% of jobs at risk due to automation in 20 years. I find that number too high to be true. 10 or 20%, maybe; 40%, it's really hard to believe - that's 15 million people in the UK without a job, where currently we have 2.3million unemployed. It would mean basically 1 million newly unemployed people each year; I would argue society would not survive 5 years in such conditions, let alone 20. In any case, I have no doubt we can create more office-based bullshit roles to offset the bulk of those losses (dedicated entertainment people in every office; corporate psychologists; continuous-change oversight; dedicated corporate tailors; and so on and so forth...).
- minthd 11y ago
  >> I find that number too high to be true. 10 or 20%, maybe; 40% The 40% came from a study at oxford, which i think was a bit conservative , because it didn't take into account the possibility of creative jobs being automated. >> I have no doubt we can create more office-based bullshit roles Sure we can. But will we ? i'm not so sure. >> but that is economically challenging unless we rethink how money is created and distributed. If that happens , a lot of things would change, for both directions - more jobs and less jobs. >> Again, this will not be touched by automation. Automation is the less powerful technology working on healthcare. But if you can detect diseases very early , and have very effective , side-effect free and long-term treatments , healthcare will become more efficient. Or let's talk about limited mobility(your example) - a leading cause is severe arthritis. But maybe we can cure that ? >> home-births Maybe we'll see growth there.But i would guess it's not that big of job provider. and even for home births, there's telemedicine and remote continuous monitoring , i think in use today - saving work.
- pixl97 11y ago
  >I have no doubt we can create more office-based bullshit roles to offset the bulk of those losses In the U.S. we are creating software to get rid of those tasks. Yes, we'll hire a few programmers to make the software, and then cut 20 or 30 people out of an office. They don't get hired back. The company puts that money in the pocket of the owners. Every year the hardware and software gets cheaper to produce too.

by minthd 11y ago

toyg 11y ago

> 1. Will they grow under new conditions ? Some conditions don't change. An OAP with limited mobility will always require assistance day-to-day, and it's the sort of thing robots are really bad at. OAPs are also growing in number, as life expectation increases. Another one: you will always need someone to help give birth - in fact, as hospitals are deemed too expensive and scaled back, we will likely need more nurses, since home-births stop them from sharing their time between patients. Again, this will not be touched by automation. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples. >2. How much more can they grow ? I think that's more a function of our social organisation than technology. The real question is basically "how can we pay these people?" -- morality and common sense tell us that a lot of these activities should not be linked to profit, but that is economically challenging unless we rethink how money is created and distributed. > We're talking about 40% of jobs at risk due to automation in 20 years. I find that number too high to be true. 10 or 20%, maybe; 40%, it's really hard to believe - that's 15 million people in the UK without a job, where currently we have 2.3million unemployed. It would mean basically 1 million newly unemployed people each year; I would argue society would not survive 5 years in such conditions, let alone 20. In any case, I have no doubt we can create more office-based bullshit roles to offset the bulk of those losses (dedicated entertainment people in every office; corporate psychologists; continuous-change oversight; dedicated corporate tailors; and so on and so forth...).

minthd 11y ago
>> I find that number too high to be true. 10 or 20%, maybe; 40% The 40% came from a study at oxford, which i think was a bit conservative , because it didn't take into account the possibility of creative jobs being automated. >> I have no doubt we can create more office-based bullshit roles Sure we can. But will we ? i'm not so sure. >> but that is economically challenging unless we rethink how money is created and distributed. If that happens , a lot of things would change, for both directions - more jobs and less jobs. >> Again, this will not be touched by automation. Automation is the less powerful technology working on healthcare. But if you can detect diseases very early , and have very effective , side-effect free and long-term treatments , healthcare will become more efficient. Or let's talk about limited mobility(your example) - a leading cause is severe arthritis. But maybe we can cure that ? >> home-births Maybe we'll see growth there.But i would guess it's not that big of job provider. and even for home births, there's telemedicine and remote continuous monitoring , i think in use today - saving work.
pixl97 11y ago
>I have no doubt we can create more office-based bullshit roles to offset the bulk of those losses In the U.S. we are creating software to get rid of those tasks. Yes, we'll hire a few programmers to make the software, and then cut 20 or 30 people out of an office. They don't get hired back. The company puts that money in the pocket of the owners. Every year the hardware and software gets cheaper to produce too.