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The Swiss unemployment rate, around 3.5%, is one of the lowest in Europe. So at this point it doesn't look like too many humans are without a job after having b

The Swiss unemployment rate, around 3.5%, is one of the lowest in Europe. So at this point it doesn't look like too many humans are without a job after having been replaced by robots. Could it be that just like with the industrial revolution, old jobs are being replaced with new ones? In that case there is no need for a basic income.

valuearb 10y ago
Old jobs are always replaced by new (and usually better ones). The history of the last 200 years has been the massive slaughter of old jobs and replacement by much higher paying and safer new jobs. In US history in from the 1800s we transitioned from 95% brutally hard and dangerous farm labor to less than 5% of the population mechanically farming. Original manufacturing was all by hand, now it's constantly machine aided. Another trend is we simply don't work as much. The age of the robots may be that we start working 24 hours a week for more money (and still bitching about going back to work on mondays)
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Old jobs are always replaced by new (and usually better ones). No, that's just what happened a few times in the past. Not some natural law. The previous times farming jobs got replaced by factory jobs (which were enough because of a huge increase in the manufactoring sector) and when those dwindled by robots and more efficient factories, they got replaced by the services industry. This time automation and software/AI depletes factory and service jobs, and we don't have much room for any other kind of jobs. Any job we'll come up with will either be able to be done by robots, or be replaced by advanced AI. The exceptions where human touch will be still (always?) needed (artistic work, prostitution, etc) are not enough to make a living even today, much less in an oversaturated future market.
pif 10y ago
> The Swiss unemployment rate, around 3.5%, ... Warning! Swiss unemployment statistics often consider only people who have been looking for a job for at most two years. After two years, you can apply for long-term social care and, astonishingly(?), you are not counted any more as "unemployed".
- AbcLala 10y ago
  And also there is a large number of immigrants who prefers to return to their home countries after their first gig or when they get unemployed. Almost 37% of the population have no Swiss background. In 6 years in Switzerland(yeah personal anecdote), I have yet seen someone being actually fired. They rather let them go, and then these people don't find another job and go back to their home countries. It takes about 6month~to get a new jobs, even when your skills are supposedly in demand. My point, the low % of unemployment is thanks to migrants, not because the job market is "great".

valuearb 10y ago

Old jobs are always replaced by new (and usually better ones). The history of the last 200 years has been the massive slaughter of old jobs and replacement by much higher paying and safer new jobs. In US history in from the 1800s we transitioned from 95% brutally hard and dangerous farm labor to less than 5% of the population mechanically farming. Original manufacturing was all by hand, now it's constantly machine aided. Another trend is we simply don't work as much. The age of the robots may be that we start working 24 hours a week for more money (and still bitching about going back to work on mondays)

coldtea 10y ago
>Old jobs are always replaced by new (and usually better ones). No, that's just what happened a few times in the past. Not some natural law. The previous times farming jobs got replaced by factory jobs (which were enough because of a huge increase in the manufactoring sector) and when those dwindled by robots and more efficient factories, they got replaced by the services industry. This time automation and software/AI depletes factory and service jobs, and we don't have much room for any other kind of jobs. Any job we'll come up with will either be able to be done by robots, or be replaced by advanced AI. The exceptions where human touch will be still (always?) needed (artistic work, prostitution, etc) are not enough to make a living even today, much less in an oversaturated future market.

pif 10y ago

> The Swiss unemployment rate, around 3.5%, ... Warning! Swiss unemployment statistics often consider only people who have been looking for a job for at most two years. After two years, you can apply for long-term social care and, astonishingly(?), you are not counted any more as "unemployed".

AbcLala 10y ago
And also there is a large number of immigrants who prefers to return to their home countries after their first gig or when they get unemployed. Almost 37% of the population have no Swiss background. In 6 years in Switzerland(yeah personal anecdote), I have yet seen someone being actually fired. They rather let them go, and then these people don't find another job and go back to their home countries. It takes about 6month~to get a new jobs, even when your skills are supposedly in demand. My point, the low % of unemployment is thanks to migrants, not because the job market is "great".