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Technology Invading Nearly All US Jobs, Even Lower Skilled, Study Finds (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Reuters report: Forget robots. The real transformation taking place in nearly every workplace is the invasion of digital tools. The use of digital tools has increased, often dramatically, in 517 of 545 occupations since 2002, with a striking uptick in many lower-skilled occupations, according to a study released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. The report underscores the growing need for workers of all types to gain digital skills and explains why many employers say they struggle to fill jobs, including many that in the past required few digital skills. There is anxiety about automation displacing workers and in many cases, new digital tools allow one worker to do work previously done by several. Those 545 occupations reflect 90 percent of all jobs in the economy. The report found that jobs with greater digital content tend to pay more and are increasingly concentrated in traditional high-tech centers like Silicon Valley, Seattle and Austin, Texas.
Around 1920, wooden shipping pallets cut down about 83% of the labor involved in shipping: what took a crew three 16-hour days to load and unload now took four hours. It became efficient to stack goods, wrap them, then transfer them on the truck to go to a port, then the ship, destination dock, back onto truck, warehouse, truck, distribution center, truck, retail center. They might unpalletize, rearrange, and palletize to go to retail so as to tailor from bulk stock to store-specific need.
A piece of wood.
Ikea has changed the shape of one of their mugs twice so as to nearly triple the number they can ship on a truck--cutting out 2/3 of the labor of shipping them.
This is what technology is. When someone says "automation", imagine a wooden shipping pallet. When they say, "It's coming for unskilled jobs!", imagine a dock worker. When they say, "It's coming for smart people's jobs this time!", imagine being a charge authorizor in American Express in 1988 (Authorizor's Assistant), or an accountant, or a market trader (look at all the automatic charting software). When they say, "It's coming for everyone's jobs this time!", look at pneumatic power tools and digital computers.
That's right: it's always coming for everyone's jobs.
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Congress and the Administration are getting paid not to get the word. Let's make those coal jobs great again....oh, those are being automated away. Let's devalue science and scientists because experts don't know nothin'.
I'm not sure i agree with that. First, any business who can't afford to pay an employee $15 an hour shouldn't be hiring employees...let the owner do all the work if they don't want to cut into their profits. Second, outside of the technology bubble live millions of people exactly like you describe. Don't forget that IQ is normally distributed and even people with potential for intelligence grow up in some really crappy circumstances that interfere with their ability to succeed.
Seriously, low-end employers make enough to pay a decent minimum wage. A pizza place can charge $15 for a single pizza and makes hundreds a day. McDonald's takes in tons of money every day and only a fraction of that goes out as labor costs.
People see work as going away and becoming scarce but in reality there is more work being undertaken as we become more efficient at it.
As we are operating today, that is not a feature. As long as we are using extractive and/or polluting methods to feed, clothe, transport, and entertain ourselves, the more work we do, the more rapidly we usher on our demise.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And as soon as the robots get good at rapidly doing the fine positioning, that guy is going to be out of a job. Right now the robots do almost all the work, and the humans assist them. They're literally just lining things up for the robots that do the actual work. How much longer do people imagine those jobs will be necessary?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What store do you shop at? The ones around here tend to go along these lines.
Tap "Start" and then tap "I dont have a store card", tap "I do not want to sign up for a store card", tap "I do not want to give money to XXX Charity", tap "produce", search through the produce screen tell you find bananas, tap "bananas", Put bananas on the scales, system gets weight and tells you to bag the bananas, place bananas in the bag and the system alerts "Extra item in bag please remove the item.", you take the bananas out of the bag and the system tells you to bag the bananas, place them back in the bag and the system alerts "Extra item in bag please remove the item.", get attendent over to tell the machine it is wrong, select "Finish and pay", tap "Use card", system instructs you to use the card reader, swipe card (sometimes multiple times for it to read), tap "Yes $xx.xx is correct", tap "I dont have a store card", tap "I do not want to sign up for a store card", tap "I do not want to give money to XXX Charity", System prints a receipt, Attendant checks your bag to make sure you did not put anything in it that you did not pay for, you go home.
Why not?? Not every job is supposed to be one you can live off of. Low wage jobs are often a way to break into the labor force and gain some experience, perfect for kids and students.
Trying running your own small business, I think your attitude would change quickly, once you see how labor costs stack up quickly, but have to deal with responsibility of handling x number of customers, managing inventory, managing the books.. one person can only do so much; then there's paying lease, heat, electricity, water/sewer, worker's comp, business tax, inventory tax, etc..
It's especially hard for small businesses because many of the federal regulations that are no financial obstacle for MegaCorp are quite difficult for Ma and Pa Corner Store. On top of that, because they tend to be smaller, when they order wholesale, they don't get the quantity discounts that MegaCorp gets.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Basicly your employer gets your labor power with a subsidy, because he hasn't to pay full for its upkeep. Everything else is burdened up to the taxpayer.