Recession, Tech Kill Middle-Class Jobs

Un pobre guey writes "'To understand the impact technology is having on middle-class jobs in developed countries, the AP analyzed employment data from 20 countries; tracked changes in hiring by industry, pay and task; compared job losses and gains during recessions and expansions over the past four decades; and interviewed economists, technology experts, robot manufacturers, software developers, entrepreneurs and people in the labor force who ranged from CEOs to the unemployed.' Their findings: Technology has consistently reduced the number of manufacturing jobs for 30 years; people with repetitive jobs have been easy to replace in the past, and task jugglers like managers and supervisors will be likely targets in the future; companies in the S&P 500 have expanded their business and increased profits, but reduced staffing, thanks to tech; and startups are launching much more easily these days. The response to the article includes the dutifully repeated bad-government-is-at-fault and don't-worry-it's-like-the-Industrial-Revolution memes. But what if this time it's different? What if delegating everything to machines is a radical and fundamental new change in the course of human history?"

Comments

Re:well we need more hands on training / apprentic

[h4rr4r]

The point of college/university is to teach you how to think not fucking tradeschool. The classes you refer as filler and fluff are the damn point!

Re:As intended.

[gl4ss]

reduction of people in manual labor jobs is intentional or if not intentional then the intentional GOAL of progress. that's what enables us to have droves of scientists, armies of professional athletes and more artists per capita than ever in every field. just a hundred years ago most people were occupied on producing basic necessities like food - now pretty much everyone in developed countries is fed, yet very few of us work in food production. that's on purpose.

doesn't have much to do with feudalism though. quite the opposite. you want feudalism, you keep everyone on manual labor, you keep everyone on leash - you don't just set them free to do whatever they please with all the information in the world. you pay few to tax them to feed the masses.. that's more akin to socialism and the star trek goal there is to eventually have just very, very few of us toiling on food production and have everyone else do research and production of whatever gimmick devices they want.

if he won't

[nten]

I will go ahead of the AC won't. During the depression progressives froze wages, business responded by offering incentives like health care and dental to work around the wage freeze when recruiting talented workers. It became an expected benefit, and then a codified one.

Re:Why do you want to work for others all your lif

[joss]

You ain't seen nothing yet. There's a short story about where all this is going.. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm.. two models of the future in there, but I only find one plausible.