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http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/02/21/business/21unemployed_graphic2/21unemployed_graphic2-articleInline.jpg http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/0

by natrius 17y ago

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/02/21/business/21unemployed_graphic2/21unemployed_graphic2-articleInline.jpg http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/02/21/business/21un... That graph is the scariest thing I've seen about this recession, and I think it makes a pretty convincing case that this time actually is different. I honestly think unskilled labor is dying off. I can't imagine what new jobs can be done with minimal education that won't be automatable within the next decade, and many existing jobs will be lost as well. It's a matter of time before people start smashing self-checkout machines.

protomyth 17y ago
what do you consider unskilled labor? Are you talking entry service jobs?
- natrius 17y ago
  On second thought, what I'm thinking of is even broader than unskilled labor. Plenty of jobs require training or minimal advanced education, but they could still be done by computers or robots. Manufacturing, retail, accounting, and similar fields seem easily automatable in the near future. For instance, once reliable anti-theft systems are built, many retail jobs will be eliminated.
  - protomyth 17y ago
    Accounting might actually be safer, but not because of job requirements. It is one of those "blame-a-person / someone needs to testify" type of positions that could be problematic going the computer / overseas route. Plumbers, Electricians, etc probably are OK, since robots really need to advance to replace them (like quantum leap) and locality is important. Manufacturing is probably hosed, and that is a huge problem.
    - robryan 17y ago
      Government insures that account is kept around with crazy regulation that complicates the entire thing. A simple tax system which could be done by anyone online because of simplification of the tax system would create an enormous efficiency gain. Having done a little bit of work in plumbing with my dad I'd have to say that the home service type plumbing isn't getting automated anytime soon. But the manufacturing based plumbing such as installing plumbing into caravans I can see eventually getting automated.
  - netcan 17y ago
    I think this is part of the illusion mentioned above. Throughout the history of technological advancement you have the destruction of jobs that seem very hard to replace. When industrialisation began you had massive shifts that were probably scarier then the ones we see now. One relatively unskilled person could create hundreds of nails effectively destroying all employment in nail making. It would have seemed ridiculous to suggest that more people would be working in manufacturing stuff 100 years later when artisans were being replaced by machines at insane rates. Then we started consuming many more nails (and other stuff) because they were cheap and making many more nails. making became the staple employer. One thing that might give you hope is reconsidering the flexibility of certain aspects of the labour market. There is no reason to assume that we need x unskilled jobs and y low-skilled jobs because there are inherently x & y unskilled and low skilled people in the market. Earlier generations of automation actually replaced fairly skilled labour with relatively unskilled labour. You didn't need to apprentice for 5 years to make forks. There is good reason to assume we can go the other way too, in fact, most advanced economies have done this.
    - natrius 17y ago
      Making nail manufacturing more efficient freed up labor to manufacture more complex and valuable things. Automating the entire manufacturing industry will require workers to shift to something that isn't manufacturing. "Earlier generations of automation actually replaced fairly skilled labour with relatively unskilled labour ... There is good reason to assume we can go the other way too..." The other way is vastly more difficult. If you replace unskilled jobs with skilled jobs, more people will need more education. What happens to the people who aren't capable of learning more complicated things? Based on history, it's very likely that I'm wrong. Based on the facts of this specific case, it seems hard to justify the need for non-creative labor.
      - netcan 17y ago
        Automating the entire manufacturing industry will require workers to shift to something that isn't manufacturing. That is very related to the point I was trying to make and why I used nails instead of clothes. Nail making had been important for a long time and required lots of people. Automation led to 10,000% or more increase in the number of nails per person. A handful of today's nailmakers can manufacture more nails then all the world's nailmakers a few centuries ago. It was effectively automating the entire industry. The other way is vastly more difficult Maybe. I'm not sure. I do think it's a fallacy however to think, as politicians seem to, of "number of unskilled workers" as some sort of constant that we can prod & shift slightly but essentially more of less the same.
pg 17y ago
Definitely a scary graph. But surely it's more likely that it is a graph of a bad recession happening than a sign that a trend that has run for hundreds if not thousands of years has stopped at this exact point in history. What was the number like in 1933?
- wheels 17y ago
  The unemployment rate in the US peaked out at about 2.5x what it is now in the Great Depression. Even now the US is the US isn't really in that bad of shape for a developed nation; it's about 2% higher than most EU countries. The US has just had very low unemployment for the last 15 years or so, so it feels more dramatic. It was actually higher than now at one point in the early 80s.
- ynniv 17y ago
  Is it not our goal as programmers to make manual labor unnecessary? Even if Google (or LexisNexis) is a poor substitute for a librarian, it has likely reduced the economic demand for simple research. While making society as a whole more wealthy, it permanently removes jobs from the market. If this age-old employment trend were to change, now is exactly when I would expect it to happen.

by natrius 17y ago

protomyth 17y ago

what do you consider unskilled labor? Are you talking entry service jobs?

natrius 17y ago
On second thought, what I'm thinking of is even broader than unskilled labor. Plenty of jobs require training or minimal advanced education, but they could still be done by computers or robots. Manufacturing, retail, accounting, and similar fields seem easily automatable in the near future. For instance, once reliable anti-theft systems are built, many retail jobs will be eliminated.
- protomyth 17y ago
  Accounting might actually be safer, but not because of job requirements. It is one of those "blame-a-person / someone needs to testify" type of positions that could be problematic going the computer / overseas route. Plumbers, Electricians, etc probably are OK, since robots really need to advance to replace them (like quantum leap) and locality is important. Manufacturing is probably hosed, and that is a huge problem.
  - robryan 17y ago
    Government insures that account is kept around with crazy regulation that complicates the entire thing. A simple tax system which could be done by anyone online because of simplification of the tax system would create an enormous efficiency gain. Having done a little bit of work in plumbing with my dad I'd have to say that the home service type plumbing isn't getting automated anytime soon. But the manufacturing based plumbing such as installing plumbing into caravans I can see eventually getting automated.
- netcan 17y ago
  I think this is part of the illusion mentioned above. Throughout the history of technological advancement you have the destruction of jobs that seem very hard to replace. When industrialisation began you had massive shifts that were probably scarier then the ones we see now. One relatively unskilled person could create hundreds of nails effectively destroying all employment in nail making. It would have seemed ridiculous to suggest that more people would be working in manufacturing stuff 100 years later when artisans were being replaced by machines at insane rates. Then we started consuming many more nails (and other stuff) because they were cheap and making many more nails. making became the staple employer. One thing that might give you hope is reconsidering the flexibility of certain aspects of the labour market. There is no reason to assume that we need x unskilled jobs and y low-skilled jobs because there are inherently x & y unskilled and low skilled people in the market. Earlier generations of automation actually replaced fairly skilled labour with relatively unskilled labour. You didn't need to apprentice for 5 years to make forks. There is good reason to assume we can go the other way too, in fact, most advanced economies have done this.
  - natrius 17y ago
    Making nail manufacturing more efficient freed up labor to manufacture more complex and valuable things. Automating the entire manufacturing industry will require workers to shift to something that isn't manufacturing. "Earlier generations of automation actually replaced fairly skilled labour with relatively unskilled labour ... There is good reason to assume we can go the other way too..." The other way is vastly more difficult. If you replace unskilled jobs with skilled jobs, more people will need more education. What happens to the people who aren't capable of learning more complicated things? Based on history, it's very likely that I'm wrong. Based on the facts of this specific case, it seems hard to justify the need for non-creative labor.
    - netcan 17y ago
      Automating the entire manufacturing industry will require workers to shift to something that isn't manufacturing. That is very related to the point I was trying to make and why I used nails instead of clothes. Nail making had been important for a long time and required lots of people. Automation led to 10,000% or more increase in the number of nails per person. A handful of today's nailmakers can manufacture more nails then all the world's nailmakers a few centuries ago. It was effectively automating the entire industry. The other way is vastly more difficult Maybe. I'm not sure. I do think it's a fallacy however to think, as politicians seem to, of "number of unskilled workers" as some sort of constant that we can prod & shift slightly but essentially more of less the same.

pg 17y ago

Definitely a scary graph. But surely it's more likely that it is a graph of a bad recession happening than a sign that a trend that has run for hundreds if not thousands of years has stopped at this exact point in history. What was the number like in 1933?

wheels 17y ago
The unemployment rate in the US peaked out at about 2.5x what it is now in the Great Depression. Even now the US is the US isn't really in that bad of shape for a developed nation; it's about 2% higher than most EU countries. The US has just had very low unemployment for the last 15 years or so, so it feels more dramatic. It was actually higher than now at one point in the early 80s.
ynniv 17y ago
Is it not our goal as programmers to make manual labor unnecessary? Even if Google (or LexisNexis) is a poor substitute for a librarian, it has likely reduced the economic demand for simple research. While making society as a whole more wealthy, it permanently removes jobs from the market. If this age-old employment trend were to change, now is exactly when I would expect it to happen.