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Thats like asking why the unemployment rate today isn't 90% considering 90% of jobs used to be in farming. The whole automation causes unemployment is a myth.
Take a job off a skilled worker, create another job driving a desk, or watching the machines.
I knew someone, that worked at a bottle factory that had been automated, but after automation, the same workers that had done the work previously, had to be employed to watch the machines. It took the company ages to realize, that the "workers" were "working" 24 hours a day. Good pay for sleeping.
This is just what I was thinking was going to happen with this automation.
I was also thinking there was going to be this HUGE gigantic push for EVERYONE to mandatorily be in tech somehow. To have to know how to work a machine in some form because they were going to try to make jobs go automated but would need a person there to keep an eye on it and to repair it. Just like what you said there, but in a way where the workers will sit and let the machine do the work but will go in every once in a while throughout the day to fix "their" machine. Everyone would be assigned a machine and it is your job to maintain it. Almost no matter what the job is someone is sitting beside it to make it work properly. Wow.
Hopefully it never goes THAT far.
Thats like asking why the unemployment rate today isn't 90% considering 90% of jobs used to be in farming. The whole automation causes unemployment is a myth.
Hahahahaha!
Not too many school-trained economists here.
These people don't understand it's technology that generates the surplus labor that is then re-absorbed into newly created jobs in newly created fields.
The 3-field crop rotation was a good thing. Why?
Because instead of needing 95% of the population --including children -- to farm so everyone don't starve to death, now you only needed 90% of the population -- including children -- to farm so everyone don't starve to death.
What about the other 5%?
That freed up labor to do other things like masonry, wood-working, dyeing, spinning, weaving, and merchanting.
They don't understand that off-shoring jobs frees up labor to do better jobs.
Some of these nutters don't understand that we can manufacture 100% of everything here but to do that we'd have to initiate the draft, increase the size of the Army to 5 Million, triple the size of the Navy and Air Force and then send the Army to foreign countries to kidnap 420 Million foreigners, bring them back to the US and then we'd have the population necessary to manufacture 100% of everything here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarlaKK
I was also thinking there was going to be this HUGE gigantic push for EVERYONE to mandatorily be in tech somehow.
No, the pace of automation is far too slow and even if it wasn't, there's not gonna be mandatory anything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cttransplant85
Because the US has more or less a free market. In Sweden it takes an average of 3-6 months to land a job because of all the bureaucracy involving employing someone. In the US you get hired on the spot.
You get hired on-the-spot in high-turnover jobs.
For any job worth a damn, it's 6-12 weeks, not because of the bureaucracy, but because the State and federal governments have made it time-consuming and extremely costly to terminate employees who are mediocre to total turds. Companies are taking their time to ensure they get the best candidates.
I see that the US is still adding a large number of jobs, but I am genuinely confused because I was under the impression that the vast majority of jobs were being automated. Self-driving cars are becoming more advanced, stores are switching to self-checkout, drones are delivering packages and most manufacturing jobs are already automated. Where exactly are all these jobs being created?
I'll use a real world example. I work for a large business with many departments and one such department monitors and supports equipment in our facilities. This department has existing for 25 years, and started out very manual and has steadily added automation over the years. It was skilled labor intensive in that it took several years to become proficient with the equipment to the point the employees could diagnose problems from alarms in the system and also provide effective support to technicians sent in to make repairs. No previous experience required, you just had to be smart and willing to work and learn. There were never enough skilled people to do this work and so for many years increased automation was the primary goal. Many millions were invested in a new alarm engine and data aggregation system, and as that came on line the department was allowed to draw down in numbers. First by not filling openings when turnover occurred and later, though a layoff that cut the number of people left in half.
Pretty soon though, a couple of things became apparent. First, you had to hire expensive people to manipulate and interpret the data in order to unlock the value in it (data scientists and such), and now that you have all this data, you can see that there is so much more going on with the equipment than you used to be able to discern, and the automated alarms (with no human intervention or interpretation) are generating MORE work than ever before. So, you have MORE technicians trying to fix things in your facilities and needing support, but since they got rid of most of the skilled and experienced people providing that support, the system overall is threatening to cascade into failure and you're wasting money on multiple trips because techs can't fix some things without support. It has suddenly dawned that the company needs to reconstitute the original department, but alas, the labor market makes that nearly impossible, and very expensive to do. Plus there is a long learning curve.
Long story short, they more you do, the more labor you're going to require. It may very well be different labor, but every advancement adds to the complexity and support needed to make it happen.
I see that the US is still adding a large number of jobs, but I am genuinely confused because I was under the impression that the vast majority of jobs were being automated. Self-driving cars are becoming more advanced, stores are switching to self-checkout, drones are delivering packages and most manufacturing jobs are already automated. Where exactly are all these jobs being created?
Do you have any solid evidence, any solid sources, that can prove that "most" jobs are being automated?
I see that the US is still adding a large number of jobs, but I am genuinely confused because I was under the impression that the vast majority of jobs were being automated. Self-driving cars are becoming more advanced, stores are switching to self-checkout, drones are delivering packages and most manufacturing jobs are already automated. Where exactly are all these jobs being created?
Automation creates jobs all its own. Plus reshoring of manufacturing is beginning to really accelerate.
Not to mention that we're entering into the final few years of Baby Boomer retirement.
Years ago it was a person sitting at the widget machine pulling the levers. These days the widget machine now has a PLC "brain". A host of sensors, solenoids, and servos. An HMI to locally display what the machine is doing. Some networking and computer infrastructure so all the widget machines can talk back to a central control room. Even more computer/networking/security infrastructure to tie the plant network into the corporate network. Software and databases so engineering and management can review important operational or production metrics.
All this stuff needs engineering to design and implement, maintaining, troubleshooting, monitoring, upgrading over time, network admin and cyber security.
I did an Associate's degree program at my local community college in Automation Technology. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but I will say where I've been able to get career/income wise has far surpassed my expectations for that level of education.
Here's what's crazy. That program I went through shut down because they weren't getting enrollment numbers. I guess maybe they didn't market it well? People aren't aware of the opportunity? I was able to get a job right out of school, basically no experience. That company was willing to invest in training me and building my experience because they struggled finding people to support their automation systems. And when I look at the job market today there are tons of opportunities for this kind of work.
They can't make Terminators yet. Still need humans for a lot of things. Covid showed us the limits of what our technology can do in the current moment.
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