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.

Comments

South Park just did a bit on automation

[rsilvergun]

good to see it making the issue into the public consciousness. This has been pointed out a few times in these automation threads but it wasn't all sunshine and kittens when the first two industrial revolutions came. It took decades for other tech to catch up and employ people. During those decades there was mass unemployment, poverty and wars. We're about to do the same thing. Sure, in 80 years it might be all good, but you and me are going to live through some (maybe all) of those 80 years. It would be nice if we learned something from the last 2 revolutions and did something about it.

And no, retraining doesn't help. It's no good retraining for scarce jobs you know.

They get unemployed, what did you think?

[XXongo]

Efficiencies including automation has a net economic increase.

Yep. And that economic increase goes entirely to the people who own the robots. Basically: the rich get richer, and the working class gets unemployed.

Re:What are the displaced workers doing?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Think about the Ferriers!

[fluffernutter]

Just because a potter could transform themselves into a buggy whip maker and buggy whip makers found work in an auto factory, it doesn't mean the progression is going to continue forever.

Re:What are the displaced workers doing?

[gbjbaanb]

It was crushed by globalism. Why mine coal in the North of England these days when you can get it shipped over from places where mine workers are paid the rough equivalent of nothing?

Why employ people to make cloth, when you can get it from abroad where workers are paid next to nothing and shipping costs are insignificant?

Why employ people to make clothings from that, when you can get it from abroad where workers and paid next to nothing too?

so all the old manufacturing industries that made Britain the richest country in the world - all the rag trade, wool trade, mining, heavy industrials, they've all gone elsewhere where workers are cheap. This is a net effect of globalisation.

Now you can say it was destined to happen, and it probably was once the world discovered it could do the same stuff cheaper, but then there was an issue where the replacement work was heavily skewed towards the already-rich, things like financial services, but the powers that be required a large mass of workers to support the rich, and so for some bizarre reason we decided to import large numbers of migrants from these countries so the workers could get even cheaper to support the rich, thus making the underlying problem even worse.

But the rich didn't care - they were rich, were getting richer, and any social problems won't affect them.

The question so what to do about it though really boils down to sustainability, so workers would make things here for large cost (think hipsters in Shoreditch selling organic coffee for £10 a cup, or t-shirts for £20 each) but applied to the rest of the country, and a reduction in population so the ability to do this becomes realistic. Minimum wage would have to rise massively, and benefits reduced massively too. And all that would require firm borders that prevent the $1 t-shirts from coming in, or the welfare migrants, or the economic migrants willing to work for next to nothing too.

And that'll never be allowed to happen, the rich like their workers to be cheap - back when the borders were thrown open in 1997, the cry was that nannies and builders were demanding too much and we needed to make them cheaper so those with too much money got to keep more of it for themselves. And so it'll continue. There's a reason the rich "metropolitan elites" want to remain in the EU so the status quo can continue without impediment.