Say Good-Bye to Employment
- In the brave new world of robotics, outsourcing and the endless importation of new workers you will see a massive increase in American poverty, a growing permanent jobless class and the rise of violence.
- The political hacks in both parties have no clue about the economic clusterfuck that is coming. As robots replace workers the consumer economy will permanently crash because no one will have jobs to buy products and services.
50% of all jobs to be abolished
BERLIN - Recent reports suggest that robots, not immigrants, may pose the greatest threat to German workers — though the European Union has placed a $4 billion bet that robots will create rather than eliminate jobs.
The new wave of automation will hit white-collar workers hardest, according to Jeremy Bowles, a researcher at the Brussels-based Bruegel Institute.
"What's fundamentally different is that (these advances) have the ability to affect a broader set of workers," Bowles said, comparing the next generation of computerization to the first wave of robots that hit assembly line jobs in the 1980s.
The impact of these innovations will vary across Europe, Bowles argues. But in Germany, as in the U.S., robots may soon take as many as half the existing jobs, according to the Bruegel Institute's analysis of the labor market.
These white-collar robots will be more software than hardware, eliminating service industry jobs in the way ATMs and automated telephone systems have already done. But — as the hostile reaction from German unions to other business models (think Amazon and Uber) has shown — bytes can be more revolutionary than bolts.
(USA Today)
Where will all the workers go?
For the developed countries, this may seem like old news. After all, for the last 30 years, the manufacturing base in Asia's emerging economies has been displacing that of the old industrial powers of Western Europe and North America. But there is no guarantee that gains in service-sector employment will continue to offset the resulting job losses in industry.
For starters, technology is making even many service jobs tradable, enabling them to be offshored to Asia and other emerging markets. And, eventually, technology will replace manufacturing and service jobs in emerging markets as well.
Today, for example, a patient in New York may have his MRI sent digitally to, say, Bangalore, where a highly skilled radiologist reads it for one-quarter of what a New York-based radiologist would cost. But how long will it be before a computer software can read those images faster, better, and cheaper than the radiologist in Bangalore can?
Likewise, in the next decade, Foxconn, which produces iPhones and other consumer electronics, plans to replace much of its Chinese workforce of more than 1.2 million with robots. And soon enough voice recognition software will replace the call centers of Bangalore and Manila.
Job-reducing technological innovations will affect education, health care, government, and even transportation. For example, will we still need so many teachers in the decades to come if the cream of the profession can produce increasingly sophisticated online courses that millions of students can take? If not, how will all of those former teachers earn a living?
(Huffington Post) |
| Welcome to the Future The few humans left with jobs will buy products. Everyone else will steal anything not nailed down. |
Apple supplier to shrink workforce
SHENZHEN, China (Reuters) - Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, will cut its massive workforce, the company told Reuters, as the Apple Inc supplier faces declining revenue growth and rising wages in China.
Under its flagship unit Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, the group currently employs about 1.3 million people during peak production times, making it one of the largest private employers in the world.
Growth in smartphone sales will halve this year from 26 percent in 2014, according to researcher IDC, while PC sales will contract by 3 percent.
Similarly, the average smartphone will sell for 19 percent less in 2018 than last year's $297.
"Even if technology is improving, the price will still come down," Woo said. "We've come to accept that, our customers have come to accept that."
Automation will be key to keeping labor costs under control in the long-term, Woo said, as the company pushes to have robotic arms complete mundane tasks currently done by workers.
But Woo noted that company chairman Terry Gou's previously stated goal of 1 million robots was "a generic concept" rather than a firm target.
(Reuters News)
Workers Fear The Robot Revolution
The threat of smart machines to jobs is becoming more recognized as the economy gradually improves but hiring still lags stubbornly behind. During the long recession, businesses have adopted strategies emphasizing “efficiency” which means more computers, automation and robots.
The good news is that some production is moving back to the United States from abroad, but far fewer workers are being hired than in earlier times due to smart machines performing complex tasks.
In fact, some factories are practically human free.
But even thoughtful analysts fail to connect the immigration dots with the automated future. Does America or any first-world nation need immigrants to do the jobs when the machine revolution is hard upon us? Big-immigration advocates like Paul Ryan insist that more foreigners are needed to replace the millions of retiring boomers, but automation changes that calculus completely.
One analytical company predicts that one-third of jobs will be performed by robots just 10 years from now, and that trend goes beyond manufacturing to cognitive tasks like financial analysis and medical diagnostics. A 2013 report from Oxford University researchers estimated that “nearly half of U.S. jobs are vulnerable to computerization.”
The future of employment looks dire, but the present is already bad enough. Jobless teens are finding a grim outlook to find entry-level work. The percentage among adults of workforce participation continues to shrink.
Bill Gates has observed that the public isn’t mentally prepared for the future where “labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower.” No surprise there — no leaders in any field are discussing the coming economic and social transformation.
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| Welcome to Eternal Poverty Imagine the grim new world of robotics where there is never, ever a chance of having a job. Where there is no way at all of improving your life. . You exist on what the government loads into your EBT card on the first of the month. When the card runs dry you join the dumpster drivers and dig for cans to recycle. |
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