What will happen when all the low skill jobs are gone?

kupus · 05-03-2016 12:16PM

Wibbs wrote: »

I suppose in my ideal world and to take the car analogy, I'd be driving a 63 split window Corvette, with a hybrid engine, modern suspension and brakes(and the steering wheel on the correct side ).

you need a shoe up the hole for mentioning corvette and hybrid engines in the one sentence. :pac:

Eugene Norman · 05-03-2016 01:46PM

KomradeBishop wrote: »

This does a good job of explaining the link between economic growth and growing energy use:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/

As partly described by others earlier in the thread, this link means that we can't have economic growth forever - which means our current economic system (which depends on neverending economic growth) has to change.

When all low skilled jobs are gone, people can just be trained into higher skilled jobs - to pick just one example of work which has no automation limits, scientific research is a field of work that is effectively infinite and will never end.

Until the human mind is effectively replicated, there's not really any limit to the work people can do, if trained into it.

As I've said before that guy makes very odd arguments. That paper admits that energy use has gotten more efficient (doubling in certain cases with more to come) and therefore economic growth can decouple from energy gains for a while, but he ignores the inputs in that paper ( in his previous paper he ignored renewables).

Inputs from solar, wind etc have huge potential gains ahead. And if energy were an issue it would be reflected in price.

Eugene Norman · 05-03-2016 01:52PM

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Well, up to now we've relied upon markets to supply enough jobs - but we can see that this leaves long gaps in time, where there are not enough jobs supplied.

So if a high level of joblessness becomes a permanent feature in the future, people will just have to get past the taboo of using non-market solutions (i.e. the state) for providing jobs (and scientific research is a pretty good area for this).

There's already a good template for this. Instead of giving people free money (a Basic Income), they would actually be put to good productive use - adding value to the economy.

It's not actually hard to solve, it just involves changes that are abhorrently anathema to people who defend the current economic order - there are a lot of people who don't want these problem solved.

I already pointed out to some of the more optimistic posters that the state has already grown and may be masking what would have been a market failure to provide full employment.

But small payments for students, research or job bridge type roles won't fix the problem. Because the payments are small these people won't be major consumers and therefore won't be the equivalent of full time workers in unionised employment who can go out and buy stuff, and the stuff they buy pays another worker who also buys stuff from their company.

KomradeBishop · 05-03-2016 02:52PM

Eugene Norman wrote: »

As I've said before that guy makes very odd arguments. That paper admits that energy use has gotten more efficient (doubling in certain cases with more to come) and therefore economic growth can decouple from energy gains for a while, but he ignores the inputs in that paper ( in his previous paper he ignored renewables).

Inputs from solar, wind etc have huge potential gains ahead. And if energy were an issue it would be reflected in price.

Well, the issue is that economic growth and growth in energy use are linked - they don't have to both grow at the same rate for this to be an issue, their growth just has to be linked.

Remember that economic growth in the current system, must be exponential, and increases in energy efficiency are finite - so even if the efficiency of energy use skyrockets, there are limits to that, which means energy use is also going to be dragged up into an exponential trend in the long term - which means a long-term exponential increase in the use of Earths resources.

As others in the thread have explained, exponential growth like this is simply unsustainable in the long term - right now it's pushing global warming, due to our reliance on fossil fuels, and even when we switch to a more 'green' economy, exponential growth means we're going to run into the limits of that type of energy collection, and will have to exponentially generate more energy locally too, and the laws of thermodynamics mean that this is going to be dumping more and more heat into the atmosphere, pushing global warming again even without fossil fuels.

In an economic system dependent on exponential growth, you can't avoid global warming - delay it once it starts, yes, but avoid, no - global warming is built-in to the current economic system.

KomradeBishop · 05-03-2016 03:04PM

Eugene Norman wrote: »

I already pointed out to some of the more optimistic posters that the state has already grown and may be masking what would have been a market failure to provide full employment.

But small payments for students, research or job bridge type roles won't fix the problem. Because the payments are small these people won't be major consumers and therefore won't be the equivalent of full time workers in unionised employment who can go out and buy stuff, and the stuff they buy pays another worker who also buys stuff from their company.

The payments wouldn't be small, they would be real living wages - and it wouldn't be job bridge, that's private internship/employment, it would be real jobs.

So the wages would stimulate demand in the private economy, providing the private sector with all the money it needs to grow to its limit, and then when the private economy is at its limit and doesn't want any more workers (full private sector employment), the rest of the workers can stay in the program.

As you can see, when an economic crisis hits, it's the perfect 'automatic stabilizer' for soaking up all the workers who lose their jobs, and then pumping the private economy back up to its full potential.

So it settles at a nice equilibrium, keeping the private sector pumped up, and any remaining workers the private sector doesn't want, still have a job and a living wage. It's actually a pretty genius policy - the best one I've yet read about.

Iwasfrozen · 05-03-2016 03:48PM

KomradeBishop wrote: »

The payments wouldn't be small, they would be real living wages - and it wouldn't be job bridge, that's private internship/employment, it would be real jobs.

So the wages would stimulate demand in the private economy, providing the private sector with all the money it needs to grow to its limit, and then when the private economy is at its limit and doesn't want any more workers (full private sector employment), the rest of the workers can stay in the program.

As you can see, when an economic crisis hits, it's the perfect 'automatic stabilizer' for soaking up all the workers who lose their jobs, and then pumping the private economy back up to its full potential.

So it settles at a nice equilibrium, keeping the private sector pumped up, and any remaining workers the private sector doesn't want, still have a job and a living wage. It's actually a pretty genius policy - the best one I've yet read about.

The Soviet Union had guaranteed state employment. The Soviet Union also had huge problems with worker inefficiency and their wages didn't provide an automatic stabilizer when the oil crisis hit.

You'd be in an even worse situation than they were because you have to borrow money at a time of economic destabilization to pay workers to do... Well we're not even sure what you want them to do.

I think we can learn from history these ideas don't work.

N.B. unemployment was illegal in the Soviet Union? You it be illegal in Soviet Ireland?

KomradeBishop · 05-03-2016 04:16PM

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The Soviet Union had guaranteed state employment. The Soviet Union also had huge problems with worker inefficiency and their wages didn't provide an automatic stabilizer when the oil crisis hit.

You'd be in an even worse situation than they were because you have to borrow money at a time of economic destabilization to pay workers to do... Well we're not even sure what you want them to do.

I think we can learn from history these ideas don't work.

N.B. unemployment was illegal in the Soviet Union? You it be illegal in Soviet Ireland?

I'm not going to debate with you, because you don't debate with honest intent - you have a long history of debating 'devils advocate' style, where you visibly don't even believe what you yourself are saying, you just try to obstruct debate and shut down discussion (and I hope other posters can see you are leaning this way, with your 'Communist Godwins Law'-esque post) - I will say this for other posters though:

The Soviet Union had public sector workers - therefore all public sector jobs are Soviet - this idea doesn't work.

The Soviet Union had state employed construction programs - therefore all state-employed construction work is Soviet - this idea doesn't work.

The Soviet Union had a state owned road system - therefore all state-owned road systems are Soviet - this idea doesn't work.

The Soviet Union had a state owned/run water system - therefore all state-owned/run water systems are Soviet - this idea doesn't work.

etc.

If the Soviet Union ever implemented a policy, that remotely resembles a policy someone wants to implement in a Capitalist system, then it won't work, because it didn't work in a Communist system (this is in fact a failure of that specific policy, not a failure of Communism as a whole...).

I hope people can see the obvious flaws in the kind of logic indented above, and how those flaws relate to what I replied to.

Wibbs · 05-03-2016 04:18PM

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The Soviet Union had guaranteed state employment.

I love the interwebs and the automatic jump to extremes. "May need to tweak our current system in the future". "OK that's obviously looking for communism!!![insert whatever ism you're having here]".

Iwasfrozen · 05-03-2016 04:24PM

KomradeBishop wrote: »

I'm not going to debate with you, because you don't debate with honest intent - you have a long history of debating 'devils advocate' style, where you visibly don't even believe what you yourself are saying, you just try to obstruct debate and shut down discussion (and I hope other posters can see you are leaning this way, with your 'Communist Godwins Law'-esque post) - I will say this for other posters though:
The Soviet Union had public sector workers - therefore all public sector jobs are Soviet - this idea doesn't work.

The Soviet Union had state employed construction programs - therefore all state-employed construction work is Soviet - this idea doesn't work.

The Soviet Union had a state owned road system - therefore all state-owned road systems are Soviet - this idea doesn't work.

The Soviet Union had a state owned/run water system - therefore all state-owned/run water systems are Soviet - this idea doesn't work.

etc.

If the Soviet Union ever implemented a policy, that remotely resembles a policy someone wants to implement in a Capitalist system, then it won't work, because it didn't work in a Communist system (this is in fact a failure of that specific policy, not a failure of Communism as a whole...).

I hope people can see the obvious flaws in the kind of logic indented above, and how those flaws relate to what I replied to.

Perhaps instead of simply dismissing the comparison out of hand you could explain why your plan wouldn't be a disaster when the Soviet's was?

Iwasfrozen · 05-03-2016 04:28PM

Wibbs wrote: »

I love the interwebs and the automatic jump to extremes. "May need to tweak our current system in the future". "OK that's obviously looking for communism!!![insert whatever ism you're having here]".

When komrade claimed high public sector employment would lead to automatic stabilizers in the economy it's fair to ask why a high level of public sector employment didn't stabilize the Soviet economy during the oil crisis.

The only people trying to shut down criticism are you and komrade.

On a side note it would be nice if people remembered a government strong enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you own. History shows us the latter is more common than the former.

Wibbs · 05-03-2016 05:09PM

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The only people trying to shut down criticism are you and komrade.

Nope. I merely pointed out the usual interwebs extreme opinions of every ism under the sun. I'd include the left on that score too BTW as I have more than once in the past. It's starting to get just a tad ridiculous at this stage where these kind of debates are endlessly hijacked by the same crew of state/market = good/bad[delete as applicable to one's personal ism].

On a side note it would be nice if people remembered a government strong enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you own.

Standard Libertarian jingoism from the online guid to same and again running to the usual binary extremes. We gave up black and white tellies years ago, it would surely be time we gave up black and white thinking too.

Iwasfrozen · 05-03-2016 05:38PM

Wibbs wrote: »

Nope. I merely pointed out the usual interwebs extreme opinions of every ism under the sun. I'd include the left on that score too BTW as I have more than once in the past. It's starting to get just a tad ridiculous at this stage where these kind of debates are endlessly hijacked by the same crew of state/market = good/bad[delete as applicable to one's personal ism].

Which is exactly what I accused you of. If "far" left or right commentary is to be disallowed then who determines what "far" is considering it's a subjective term?

Standard Libertarian jingoism from the online guid to same and again running to the usual binary extremes. We gave up black and white tellies years ago, it would surely be time we gave up black and white thinking too.

Wisdom is universal, you would be a fool to dismiss what's true because you label it libertarian.

Wibbs · 05-03-2016 06:02PM

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Which is exactly what I accused you of. If "far" left or right commentary is to be disallowed then who determines what "far" is considering it's a subjective term?

Where did I shut down debate, or "disallow" anything? I posted an opinion and you got defensive, this is not the same thing. KomradeBishop is happily firing off post after post outlining his position with links and such. I'm not getting in his way it seems, nor would I want to.

Wisdom is universal,

We may have to agree to disagree there.

you would be a fool to dismiss what's true because you label it libertarian.

One would have to accept the truth of a position first, which it appears you have because it fits into your personal belief system. This does not necessarily make it universally true, it just makes it true for you. And taking your truth further, just because there is the capacity for something, doesn't mean that capacity will be used. Take legal incarceration. Ireland and the US have pretty much the same capacity to throw a citizen in gaol, but the US does it far more often to far more people.

gar32 · 06-03-2016 01:43PM

I have a great interest in this subject. He are some finding that some people may like to review.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34066941 Will your job be replaced by a robot BBC answer.

https://www.thevenusproject.com/ Keeping most of the people happy most of the time.

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ There are 7 Billion Plus & counting who needs robots?

Yes peoples jobs will be replaced but new jobs will be made.

Good luck in the future job hunt

SeanW · 06-03-2016 04:20PM

Deleted User wrote: »

I seem to recall that East German engineers were given a mandate to design them (and other stuff) to last 25 years.

The waiting list for a replacement was probably close enough to that.

ScumLord wrote: »

Automation is available to everyone, governments won't be in control of automation.

Yes, but in practice it will only work to the benefit of very few - the 1%. "Old style" capitalism with its inefficiencies worked to benefit a much broader range of people.

That's not really true, it's the theory but in practice it only lead to less poverty than communism it didn't eradicate it.

Consider human quality of life before the Industrial Revolution and after it. The Industrial Revolution made lots of goods more affordable, sometimes of a higher quality, but required vast armies of workers who were paid well enough to tempt them from farms and the like. It was launced by all the trappings of captialism. Inventers made the first manufacturing machines, entrepeneurs to start new manufacturing businesses, savers to provide capital and banks to organise the loans between the savers and entrepreneurs. Oh and lots and lots of workers. People continued to benefit fot over a century afterwards, the lack of options for the poorly educated didn't really bite until well after the 1950s.

I think there's no way of avoiding the fact that democratic capitalist societies won't make sense in the future. Democracy see's us hiring inexperienced people out of population to do the most important jobs in the country. Capitalism sees us turning valuable resources into stuff we don't need or want. Once the jobs get too difficult for the uneducated and we run out of easily accessible resources we'll have no choice but to change.

This is where I disagree most strongly - we do not IMO have alternatives to "democratic capitalism". Democracy, it has been truthfully said, "is the worst form of government, except for all the others". Capitalism is the only way to get the best out of people. Your favourite musician? They make their music so you'll pay them. Your job? Someone pays you because the work you do has value - you probably wouldn't get up at 7-8 in the morning to whatever you do if capitalism wan't making it worth your while. Most of the inventors who made cars, machines, computers, medicines, arts like music, movies, games, all ultimately act in their own self-interest.

That's why capitalism has worked so well up until perhaps the Millenium. It recognises that we all act in our own self-interest, and rewards us accordingly for doing useful stuff for other people. What I and others fear is "what happens if the options for doing useful stuff deterioriate because of automation?"

This is what terrifies me - there is no Plan B. Messers. Lenin, Stalin tried an alternative back in 1917, at the time, the people affected sent us a postcard saying "Help, this sucks, wish we were there ..." The world is still recovering from the monumental clusterf*** they caused and will proably never recover fully.

KomradeBishop wrote: »

If the Soviet Union ever implemented a policy, that remotely resembles a policy someone wants to implement in a Capitalist system, then it won't work, because it didn't work in a Communist system (this is in fact a failure of that specific policy, not a failure of Communism as a whole...).I hope people can see the obvious flaws in the kind of logic indented above, and how those flaws relate to what I replied to.

I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at here, but I suspect this is a mild defense of Communism ... tell me if it were the 1970s, where would you rather be, London or Leningrad?

steddyeddy · 06-03-2016 04:33PM

Define low skill jobs?

As technology improves a lot more jobs will become low skill.

06-03-2016 05:06PM

steddyeddy wrote: »

Define low skill jobs?

As technology improves a lot more jobs will become low skill.

A job that anyone who has had a basic school education can be (on the job) trained to do in less than a week, or minutes when talking about very menial work.

Keplar240B · 06-03-2016 05:10PM

Human zoos for AI cyborgs.

ScumLord · 07-03-2016 04:22PM

SeanW wrote: »

Yes, but in practice it will only work to the benefit of very few - the 1%. "Old style" capitalism with its inefficiencies worked to benefit a much broader range of people.

Automation benefits everyone, that's absolutely clear, it's everywhere and cheap enough at this stage to be in the hands of just about any small business that needs it. It's even in your home, your washing machine is an automated process. Old style capitalism gave control to one person and everyone used to work for him, I've seen the setup of some old school businesses and they used to run like dictatorships. Now smaller businesses can afford to buy the same machinery and provide the products that big business wont. Today a CNC milling machine costs no more than the price of a new van.

This is where I disagree most strongly - we do not IMO have alternatives to "democratic capitalism". Democracy, it has been truthfully said, "is the worst form of government, except for all the others". Capitalism is the only way to get the best out of people.

Really? Where the egyptians capitalists? The Mayans? Humans have been around for thousands of years, we've tried all sorts of ways of doing civilization, I don't think it's fair to say that everyone that wasn't capitalist were being half arsed because they weren't getting paid. Capitalist democracy is the system we ended up with, it's a direct result of colonial traders trying to secure their wealth.

It works because it's crude and easy to understand, it's not so much a system as the acceptance of nature's way. It's such a crude system even monkeys understand exchanging coins for food, in fact they understood it so well male monkeys stopped buying food with their coins and started paying females for sex.

Your favourite musician? They make their music so you'll pay them. Your job? Someone pays you because the work you do has value - you probably wouldn't get up at 7-8 in the morning to whatever you do if capitalism wan't making it worth your while. Most of the inventors who made cars, machines, computers, medicines, arts like music, movies, games, all ultimately act in their own self-interest.

I'd say most of them just followed their interests. If someone doesn't get paid for making music does it mean they enjoy the act of making music less? Does their music have less value because a load of teenagers aren't buying it? I have little interest in money, everything I learn to do is for my own satisfaction. There's plenty of people that recognise money is just a means to an end.

micosoft · 07-03-2016 04:38PM

Easca Peasca wrote: »

Everyone will be working in IT.

Actually the next big shedding of staff is in IT. An awful lot of IT operations roles will shortly be made redundant by the shift to cloud. When I started out it was 1/2 IT folk per Minicomputer. Then it was 8 PC Servers to staffer. Amazon were saying three years ago it was 10000:1.....

Like every other profession a small group of Devops will do better. Many will be washed up with old technology skills.

micosoft · 07-03-2016 04:59PM

ScumLord wrote: »

Automation benefits everyone, that's absolutely clear, it's everywhere and cheap enough at this stage to be in the hands of just about any small business that needs it. It's even in your home, your washing machine is an automated process. Old style capitalism gave control to one person and everyone used to work for him, I've seen the setup of some old school businesses and they used to run like dictatorships. Now smaller businesses can afford to buy the same machinery and provide the products that big business wont. Today a CNC milling machine costs no more than the price of a new van.

No. No it doesn't. At the very least it does not benefit those who immediately lose their jobs. You can argue that society benefits immediately and that they may benefit in the medium to long term but in the short term automation (and any other technology shock) does not benefit people losing their jobs because they can't transition. Ask any printer during the Desktop Publishing Revolution.

ScumLord wrote: »

Really? Where the egyptians capitalists? The Mayans? Humans have been around for thousands of years, we've tried all sorts of ways of doing civilization, I don't think it's fair to say that everyone that wasn't capitalist were being half arsed because they weren't getting paid. Capitalist democracy is the system we ended up with, it's a direct result of colonial traders trying to secure their wealth.

The Mayans practiced lobotomies with ceremonial knives. Does that mean Modern Scientific Healthcare is just "the system we ended up with"? Capitalism IS the system that proved adaptable enough to beat every single alternative. The last alternative collapsed entirely in 1990 because it had spent the previous 20 years borrowing money from the Capitalist system to sustain it.

ScumLord wrote: »

It works because it's crude and easy to understand, it's not so much a system as the acceptance of nature's way. It's such a crude system even monkeys understand exchanging coins for food, in fact they understood it so well male monkeys stopped buying food with their coins and started paying females for sex.

And yet American century is in many ways as much about the US cultural dominance of the world as it is a discussion on "coins". Ultimately the wall came down in part because the alternative system lost the culture war - their children wanted to listen to American music, wear American Jeans and eat American food.

ScumLord wrote: »

I'd say most of them just followed their interests. If someone doesn't get paid for making music does it mean they enjoy the act of making music less? Does their music have less value because a load of teenagers aren't buying it? I have little interest in money, everything I learn to do is for my own satisfaction. There's plenty of people that recognise money is just a means to an end.

Because it's in their self interest. And if their self interest says they need to plant food in the soil to feed themselves because they cannot earn money through their music then that's what they will do. What is the last musician you remember from the USSR?

imitation · 07-03-2016 05:05PM

People focus too much on the jobs, yes it now takes 1 person to do jobs that took 10 before. This is only a good thing because these people are free to do something else.

The problem isnt automation or jobs going, its the fundamental way society is structured, there is always plenty of human "work" to be done, be it caring for others, art, research etc. The problem is the notion it needs to be paid for is so ingrained into usvlands us in the current predicament. Unfortunately attempts to move in a different direction failed horribly and now people think there is only ever one system that will work. The reality is a lot of ideas have been scraped because the only governments who tried them also believed in abusing human rights, shooting people who try to emigrate and complete paranoid control of society.

ScumLord · 07-03-2016 06:24PM

micosoft wrote: »

No. No it doesn't. At the very least it does not benefit those who immediately lose their jobs. You can argue that society benefits immediately and that they may benefit in the medium to long term but in the short term automation (and any other technology shock) does not benefit people losing their jobs because they can't transition. Ask any printer during the Desktop Publishing Revolution.

But people are gaining and losing jobs all the time. Automation is creeping into businesses all the time. Most automation isn't a factory deciding we're automating everything and you're all fired. It's a gradual progression, one section gets some automation, still need guy to work at the station, conveyors are added in between station, guy keeps his job, eventually he may end up in control of a machine that does most of the work and eventually then he may get redundancy, where he can re educate himself living off the redundancy, if he even needs to re educate. The vast majority of factories aren't fully automated or anywhere near it. Machines do the work under the supervision of a controller. Even the most advanced CNC mills need someone watching over them so they don't get an error and then make a 1000 parts with that error.

The Mayans practiced lobotomies with ceremonial knives. Does that mean Modern Scientific Healthcare is just "the system we ended up with"
Capitalism IS the system that proved adaptable enough to beat every single alternative. The last alternative collapsed entirely in 1990 because it had spent the previous 20 years borrowing money from the Capitalist system to sustain it.

There are alternatives that don't involve communism. I'm not saying capitalism hasn't allowed the rapid advancement of human understanding. I've been trying to highlight the fact that there's really no such thing as evil corporations, they eb and flow with the market that the consumer effectively controls through their purchases. But that doesn't mean capitalism isn't deeply flawed and ultimately becoming unworkable. It's worked for a time, a time when we had a smaller global population, a new way of making things and the resources to burn. Now we're at the end of that splurge and we're going to have to acknowledge limitless growth is not going to continue working on a finite planet.

Capitalism won't work in space either though. Resources are in massive abundance up there, to the point mining something could devalue it enough to make it not worth the effort to mine it. Water and gold are just floating around up there waiting for us.

And yet American century is in many ways as much about the US cultural dominance of the world as it is a discussion on "coins". Ultimately the wall came down in part because the alternative system lost the culture war - their children wanted to listen to American music, wear American Jeans and eat American food.

Yeah, the Americans were the driving force of the last century. That doesn't mean we should all be aiming for 1950s American life style for the rest of eternity. That was a time and a place that's now past. It's not going to work again. Part of the reason America was such a world power is because all their peers were dealing with the fallout from WW2. The Brits handed over all their empire's secrets to the yanks to get them involved in the war, everything they knew about radar, jet engines, atomic bombs. There was no one in a position to challenge the yanks dominance after the war. But it only took the Germans and the Japanese to supersede American manufacturing.

Ally Dick · 07-03-2016 08:53PM

Easca Peasca wrote: »

Everyone will be working in IT.

They'll have to try and get rid of the Indians who are in ahead of them working for half nothing though

gar32 · 14-03-2016 10:11AM

So I work in the most automated factory type around. Semiconductors are made using totally automated machines that process wafers. They move around the factory using transport system which is automated and the software that control things sends the workers emails or text messages when there is an error. We still have a team of few hundred people looking after the machines. Maybe a few years back 50% more people where needed but staff reduction happens when sales are slow with Productivity improvement done continually. LEAN Manufacturing is used if anyone wants to look it up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing

I know of many people over the last 15 years who have moved out of this industry due to automation and even with training etc. I am still on the bottom ladder which I am told will be automated soon also. Software will review error warnings from machines and filter out the important ones for human viewing. I foresee myself moving to another industry with less automation and with low wages.

My advice is stay in education or up skill every few years. The race to the bottom is getting faster.

gar32 · 14-03-2016 10:22AM

No comment on deleted item.

ancapailldorcha · 14-03-2016 02:10PM

Post by rereg troll and response to said post deleted.

eeguy · 30-05-2016 01:31PM

So very bad news for low skilled workers this week.

60,000 jobs gone in Foxconn, Adidas is moving it's shoe manufacturing back to Germany to a new robotic factory and McDonalds is turning to automation to reduce it's wage bill.

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/1949918/rise-robots-60000-workers-culled-just-one-factory-chinas

http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2016/05/24/fmr-mcdonalds-usa-ceo-35k-robots-cheaper-than-hiring-at-15-per-hour.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/25/adidas-to-sell-robot-made-shoes-from-2017

We're well insulated from this in Europe, but with all the immigration issues, will automation result in even more people travelling here in search of work.

Superhorse · 30-05-2016 02:50PM

Personally think the days of low unemployment in many countries is gone. 10-15% will be the norm for many in the coming years.

Captain Chaos · 30-05-2016 02:57PM

All these people will need to train to look after and install the robots that are replacing them....

Until they make robots that will look after other robots and so on....

Until eventually we won't need to work for money and money won't be needed anymore as we approach singularity with nature.:)

What will happen when all the low skill jobs are gone?

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