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This. I find it absolutely amazing this hasn't been talked about more. I have no idea what the majority of the population is going to do in the near-future. Th

by tkahn6 16y ago

This. I find it absolutely amazing this hasn't been talked about more. I have no idea what the majority of the population is going to do in the near-future. These jobs are not coming back. I posit that a large percentage of the currently unemployed will never be employed in their sector again. We will never reach pre-2007 employment levels because the majority of jobs weren't and aren't necessary.

adammichaelc 16y ago
I up-voted you, but what's up with the reddit-speak? It's unnecessary.
- tkahn6 16y ago
  How would you have liked me to phrase it?
  - adammichaelc 16y ago
    Just without the "This"
    - tkahn6 16y ago
      That's a relatively common thing to see on HN.
  - adammichaelc 16y ago
    Just without the "This"
- jrockway 16y ago
  What part is the reddit-speak? "This."? I saw that on MetaFilter long before I saw it on Reddit.
rdtsc 16y ago
Invest in some online colleges? Those who lost their jobs due to efficiency and technology improvements are going to become the target customers of many of those online schools in hopes to switch to a new sector. They will take on a large amount debt as a result and might never actually be able to find jobs -- but the colleges need now worry about that -- they'll get payed by the government...
nl 16y ago
I think you could be right, long term. In the short to medium term I don't think it is clear. To grow employment, the US needs to grow its manufacturing sector. Many people think that is impossible because of lower costs in China. However, Chinese manufacturing costs are under increasing wages pressure (see http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2010-07/19/content_10123116.htm http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2010-07/19/content_101...). For some thing that isn't going to matter - the cost of labor is the main cost in manufacture, so China will be cheaper. For some industries, though, there are significant capital costs up front. China doesn't necessarily have such a big advantage there, and it's the kind of thing that properly targeted government stimulus (direct or in the form of tax concessions etc) can make a big difference. Unfortunately it seems that a large part of the political dialog in the US revolves around how bad any form of government intervention in the market is. The US's competitors don't have that weakness, though.
- tkahn6 16y ago
  I definitely agree that growing manufacturing is a short-to-medium term solution to unemployment. However, I think it's only a partial-solution going forward in that a) employers won't need to (and therefore won't) employ as many workers per plant and b) the skill-sets required for those positions will be more demanding[1] than those in the past. As for the long term, I think it's safe to say that robotics and automation will eventually remove entirely the need for human factory workers and (nearly) all manual labor. I'm intensely interested the type of society that this will give rise to and I don't know if it's possible (I suspect not) for this type of market to sustain our current population. [1. I could probably find you an article saying this, but I heard this on PBS Newshour about a week ago.]
  - nl 16y ago
    As for the long term, I think it's safe to say that robotics and automation will eventually remove entirely the need for human factory workers and (nearly) all manual labor. Maybe. People are surprisingly cheap in some parts of the world, and robotics are pretty expensive. Even in the future, the raw materials in machinery won't magically get cheaper. For some industries the upfront costs associated with automation won't be worth it for a long, long time.
andreyf 16y ago
I have no idea what the majority of the population is going to do in the near-future. Some part of marketing and advertising? That seems to have been the trend for the last century or so...
- varjag 16y ago
  Century? Hell, no - up until 1970s the USA was distinctly industrial powerhouse. As were nearly all other developed economies.
- tkahn6 16y ago
  This is obviously a very, very small data point but just the other night on the PBS Newshour they had a piece about the 99-weekers (people who have been out of a job for 99+ weeks) and the central interviewee of the story was formerly in marketing.

by tkahn6 16y ago

adammichaelc 16y ago

I up-voted you, but what's up with the reddit-speak? It's unnecessary.

tkahn6 16y ago
How would you have liked me to phrase it?
- adammichaelc 16y ago
  Just without the "This"
  - tkahn6 16y ago
    That's a relatively common thing to see on HN.
- adammichaelc 16y ago
  Just without the "This"
jrockway 16y ago
What part is the reddit-speak? "This."? I saw that on MetaFilter long before I saw it on Reddit.

rdtsc 16y ago

Invest in some online colleges? Those who lost their jobs due to efficiency and technology improvements are going to become the target customers of many of those online schools in hopes to switch to a new sector. They will take on a large amount debt as a result and might never actually be able to find jobs -- but the colleges need now worry about that -- they'll get payed by the government...

nl 16y ago

I think you could be right, long term. In the short to medium term I don't think it is clear. To grow employment, the US needs to grow its manufacturing sector. Many people think that is impossible because of lower costs in China. However, Chinese manufacturing costs are under increasing wages pressure (see http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2010-07/19/content_10123116.htm http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2010-07/19/content_101...). For some thing that isn't going to matter - the cost of labor is the main cost in manufacture, so China will be cheaper. For some industries, though, there are significant capital costs up front. China doesn't necessarily have such a big advantage there, and it's the kind of thing that properly targeted government stimulus (direct or in the form of tax concessions etc) can make a big difference. Unfortunately it seems that a large part of the political dialog in the US revolves around how bad any form of government intervention in the market is. The US's competitors don't have that weakness, though.

tkahn6 16y ago
I definitely agree that growing manufacturing is a short-to-medium term solution to unemployment. However, I think it's only a partial-solution going forward in that a) employers won't need to (and therefore won't) employ as many workers per plant and b) the skill-sets required for those positions will be more demanding[1] than those in the past. As for the long term, I think it's safe to say that robotics and automation will eventually remove entirely the need for human factory workers and (nearly) all manual labor. I'm intensely interested the type of society that this will give rise to and I don't know if it's possible (I suspect not) for this type of market to sustain our current population. [1. I could probably find you an article saying this, but I heard this on PBS Newshour about a week ago.]
- nl 16y ago
  As for the long term, I think it's safe to say that robotics and automation will eventually remove entirely the need for human factory workers and (nearly) all manual labor. Maybe. People are surprisingly cheap in some parts of the world, and robotics are pretty expensive. Even in the future, the raw materials in machinery won't magically get cheaper. For some industries the upfront costs associated with automation won't be worth it for a long, long time.

andreyf 16y ago

I have no idea what the majority of the population is going to do in the near-future. Some part of marketing and advertising? That seems to have been the trend for the last century or so...

varjag 16y ago
Century? Hell, no - up until 1970s the USA was distinctly industrial powerhouse. As were nearly all other developed economies.
tkahn6 16y ago
This is obviously a very, very small data point but just the other night on the PBS Newshour they had a piece about the 99-weekers (people who have been out of a job for 99+ weeks) and the central interviewee of the story was formerly in marketing.