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Automation To Take 1 in 3 Jobs in UK's Northern Centres, Report Finds (theguardian.com)
Workers in Mansfield, Sunderland and Wakefield are at the highest risk of having their jobs taken by machines, according to a report warning that automation stands to further widen the north-south divide. From a report: Outside of the south of England, one in four jobs are at risk of being replaced by advances in technology -- much higher than the 18% average for wealthier locations closer to London. Struggling towns and cities in the north and the Midlands are most exposed. A total of 3.6m UK jobs could be replaced by machines. The Centre for Cities thinktank says almost one-third of the jobs in the Nottinghamshire town of Mansfield, near the Sports Direct warehouse, are involved in lines of work under threat as robots begin to replace humans in the years up to 2030. Jobs at the highest risk of replacement include those in retail sales, customer services, administration and warehouse work.
The North of England was the richest, most industrious part of the world... it was the heart of the industrial revolution, scientific progress and manufacturing globally.
It was utterly crushed, impoverished and brain-drained by various governments in the UK - and to be fair, shifts in technology. UK governments thought it could be replaced by the service industry - everyone selling insurance and basic minimum wage service jobs.
Then those were all replaced by cheap 'global' labour.. even the geographically local service jobs were replaced as successive governments opened the floodgates to mass migration.
Now where do those people go? Which country do they move to?
You need to also keep this in context - London enriched itself massively during this time.
And this wasn't some intellectual elite in London climbing to the top of the pile. It was deliberate policies to enrich themselves while annihilating communities that could not move and had nowhere to go. And then sitting back and stroking off about 'let them eat cake, get a new education and move'. Never bothering to explain where this entire population was going to get an education and move to.