Computers: The Death Knell for Jobs

The world is undergoing a mega shift and most of the governments have no idea how to handle the problem. Computer power has reached the point where almost any job can be automated, and computer pricing has reached the point where it is profitable to do so.


When people think of automation, the first thought is of robots working on a production floor in manufacturing but that is just the tip of the iceberg. The real job killers are the things around us every day that we never notice.


The internet has been the biggest job killer in history. If you look at the rise of the internet and the job participation chart, you will see that as the internet grew, jobs shrunk. This trend will continue.


Look at the Kindle, a nifty little device. Before the Kindle, if you wanted a book, you hopped in your car, drove to a bookstore, and bought a book. Books were printed, shipped to bookstores, put on shelves, then a clerk took your money. Today, you go on the net, find what you want and punch a button. In seconds, you have the book at your fingertips. No printing, no binding, no shipping, no wear and tear on your car, no gas used, never talk to a human.


No one thinks of a Kindle as automation, but it is. Because of the Kindle, trees do not have to be grown, paper does not have to be made, shipping does not have to be done, printing does not have to be done, and bookstores are put out of business.


Email is another job killer. The USPS is basically going to lose 300,000 people because of e-mail. Unseen is the loss of jobs in making envelopes, stamps, gas usage, and wear and tear on delivery vehicles.


Retailers constantly complain about Wal-Mart but Wal-Mart is small potatoes compared to the massive online retailers. You can sit at home and find almost anything made, compare prices and purchase it and have it shipped to your home and never talk to a human. If you think a manufacturing plant run by robots is amazing, check out a YouTube of an Amazon warehouse. It is fully automated.


Read the rest: http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2013/10/30/politicians-are-all-jabbering-about-creating-jobs-doing-what.html

Economies shift.


One night the news talks about over consumption and millions of cars on the roads killing our air....Go Green!!!


When people start to go green.....then it's 'lost jobs' in manufacturing and fewer trees cut down....The economy is in peril..


We're human. That means until its destroyed, we can't be forced to change things.

when changes happen some jobs go while others are created


email may have displaced snail mail but online retail has spawned parcel deliveries and courier services that the USPS were slow to recognise


nothing stays the same forever and the only certainty in life is change

That may have been so in the past but so far this has not been the case as we have been in what has been referred to as a 'jobless recovery' since 2000...


Perhaps there may be developments that are coming that will provide jobs for the millions of unemployed youth around the world - but then maybe no.


There are no guarantees that the system will create jobs for those lost through technology developments.


Nothing is on the horizon and we have a generation trapped in low paying jobs or no jobs at all...

Surviving the post-employment economy


http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/11/surviving-post-employment-economy-201311373243740811.html

Make people need you, and you'll have a job. If there's really nothing you can do that machines can't do then you were probably a drain on society before machines took your job anyway.

Because of Kindle people are writing and pblishing books who would never have been able to publish before, google has 53000 employees, microsoft has 89000 employees, Amazon has 97000, look at the number of small internet shops opening which could not exist before because of rental costs, armys of developers are developing apps and internet games, millions of jobs have been created in developing countries, such as call centres and IT support and processing.

However we have record unemployment numbers for under 25's across much of the developed world... 25% in the US... up to 60% in some EU countries ...


That would seem to indicate that there is a massive nett negative in the jobs market.


It would appear that the Google, MS, and Amazon numbers are nowhere near making up for the job losses that are occurring.

Ed - I strongly doubt job losses are occuring all due to the internet. I would suspect it is more likely due to globalisation, the shift to the east, with many many more people now competing for well paid jobs and more flexible and cheaper labour markets available in developing nations, all speeded up by the recent recession and austerity. Your writer bases himself on "There's a study out that says...", there needs to be better info than that to come to a conclusion that internet is killing jobs globally.


In the meantime, check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdvo5FlRqmM

and

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24836917

HKLEV - not only the internet --- but computers in general...


Amazon's warehouses are nearly completely automated... and becoming more so... likewise car factories are robot operated with a few technicians overseeing this...


The reality is that a machine is cheaper over the long run than a person - a machine doesn't go on strike or demand higher pay - or take sick days ...


Law offices are higher fewer lawyers because research work can be done by computers now...


Even factories in China are beginning to phase in machines because they are far more accurate than human workers...


This has been going for some time now - and it is accelerating ... where are the jobs for the people these machines are replacing?


Of course the global jobless situation is not all about machines - it's also about chronic economic malaise... too much debt...


But the automating of the work force surely must be a concern because it is contributing increasingly to this crisis of youth unemployment

Ed - I bet they said the same when the steam engine was invented, or the assembly line. Yes some jobs are dissapearing, but new ones are reappearing as a result. Just not necessarily in the same places. However, unless there are real figures to prove your point it is all pure speculation.

I like the first link I posted before as their message is, many present jobs never existed 10 years ago and we dont know now what future jobs will be and yet we have to train people to do them.

The second link shows a significant portion of the world population has been pulled out of extreme poverty...how is that possible if there are less jobs?

Regarding youth unemployment...in the present day with fast changing technology, youth should have a huge advantage. It is older people who will not be able to keep up. In my mind, as malka points out, youth unemployment is a problem of rigid labour markets and lack of matching education.

It's not as if there are loads of positions in the US and Europe not being filled because of a mismatch in skills...


There are simply no jobs to be had.


I see that as a product of the Depression like conditions in these countries - off shoring of jobs - and a nett job loss due to automation/computers...


Where is the new driver of the job market in these western countries? So far nothing has emerged...


The US has been in a jobless 'recovery' for 15 years... regardless of what the causes are the implications are disastrous - with 25% youth unemployment who is going to pay taxes to maintain services - who is going to buy houses - etc etc...


The US is currently monetizing about half it's debt to counter revenue losses i.e. there are not enough lenders so the Fed is printing money instead...


This cannot go on forever.... an economy cannot function with 25% youth unemployment... or up to 60% youth unemployment as much of the EU is experiencing...

This hysteria over jobs is hilarious and goes to show how poorly people understand economics, reality and history.


No one wants a job - what we want are goods, services and leisure. If we can get robots and computers to create or do those goods or services for us then that is even better - less work for us to do and more leisure to enjoy. If there was a "Giving Tree" that grew everything imaginable in the universe and performed every possible service for free and to everyone, would we burn the tree down because it stole all our jobs? No! This would be heaven on Earth and we would all be free to spend 24/7 enjoying leisure rather than stuck half of our lifetime performing jobs in order to obtain the things we want.


Progressives and socialists have been crying about innovation and technology for over a hundred years now - it is unfathomable that the term progress is actually attributed to a group of people who vociferously fight all forms of technological and economic progress. But anyways - when farming was invented it put the hunter-gather out of a job. When the steel plow was invented it put the handplow strongman out of business. When the tractor and all other forms of farm machinery were invented it put the slaves out of business [do you think it is just a magical coincidence that people gave up slavery during the time of the industrial revolution - the new machinery was cheaper than it was to purchase and feed armies of slaves].


The refrigerator put the iceman out of business. Pasteurization put the milkman out of business. The handheld calculator put the female calculator out of business (the term calculator originated from a career that highly educated women held to do rapid mental math). Natural gas and coal put the whalers out of business. The lightbulb put the candlemaker out of business.


Why isn't unemployment already 100%?! Look at all of the job-killing innovations we've had over the past 200 years, we should all be jobless and broke poor! But instead we are the wealthiest generation to have ever graced this planet, enjoying the highest standard of living and living the longest lives of any group of people ever, period point blank. Innovation and progress grow the economy, they grow the job base, they increase quality of living and make the world a safer and more pleasant place to be on.


When the iceman lost his job to the refrigerator he was not permanently unemployed and destitute until the day he died. He found a new service he could provide or a new good he could create for people and he re-employed himself.


Why do you think the streets of HK have thousands of different clothing stores, bakery shops, food restaurants and other frivolous boutique shops but poor countries in Africa only have a few in the entire city? Is it because Africans do not want these things? Of course they do, but they are too busy working the fields by hand and carrying buckets of water from the stream to have any spare moment to even fantasize over the luxuries of life, let alone actually create and market them. In America 10 farmers with advanced farming equipment can grow enough food to feed 10,000, but in Africa 10 farmers can maybe feed 20 people. So to feed 10,000 Africans you need 5,000 farmers, leaving only 5,000 others with spare time to perform other jobs like hut-making and basket weaving. But in the US there are 9,990 spare people, so 100 can make huts, 10 can make baskets, and the remaining 9,880 can invent new things that would make people happy and make them... like music, arts, books, clothing, education, etc. Under the false logic of people that fear technology as job killers, America should have 98.8% unemployment because all the farmers & their machinery stole all the jobs working as farm laborers!


The massive increases in productivity that things like computers grant us free up humans from performing certain tasks and allow them to re-invest their time & labor to create even newer and better products and services.


That unemployment is ~25% these past few years is 1) a blip when compared to the long term multi-century scale of modern human civilization and 2) completely structural and caused by government intervention with the creation of welfare dependency.


Take away the welfare and surprise surprise, all those lazysh*ts will find themselves a job. If you took away all welfare programs do you think those 25% unemployed would choose to starve to death in the streets, or would they find new a way to create or serve someone in exchange for food? Obviously they will find a job to perform.


This hysteria over computers or other technological innovations is crazy. It is a hysteria that has been going on for ages (go read your economic history, especially read what the progressives said 100 years ago) and you'll realize that people have been saying this for literally centuries and they've all been dead-wrong every single time. Logic proves them wrong and all historical evidence proves them even more wrong.

I would suggest that looking backwards is not necessarily a good predictor of the future... what happened then does not mean it will happen going forward.


We now have almost 7.2 billion people on the planet... in the past we had far fewer people and one could always 'push west into a new frontier' looking for opportunities...


The new frontiers are now crowded and global population continues to grow exponentially:


http://bixby.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/current-pop-jpeg.JPG



Unemployment amongst youths in the developed world is off the charts... in the US it's close to 25%... across Europe it is far worse http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/524db16decad04407be26a2e-800-/rtr3fimn.jpg



I fail to see where jobs are going to come from for these tens of millions of people...


If they are coming they better materialize soon because all of these unemployed people are a) not paying taxes b) not contributing to the economy c) are a drain on their country's social services d) having their skills erode




A guy i know - extremely hard working - very clever - rose to a senior position in a global industry - decided to do a part time mba - was laid off while doing the mba - completed the mba over two years ago and has been looking for a new job ever since - with no success... he has savings so he doesn't (yet) have to take a job at Starbucks... but if he has to he will.... but then he might not get it because he is overqualified.


Sure some people are lazy - there have always been lazy people ....


But are 60% of the youth in Greece lazy? 25% of the kids in the US lazy? 56% in Spain lazy?


The mathematics of the situation are simply - there are nowhere near enough jobs to go around


Of course you try to upgrade yourself so that you can qualify and be one of the lucky ones - but even then - if you are a 50 year old construction worker who does a course in health care - who is going to hire you?




Ironically the guy with the mba used to say the same thing - if you want a job there are jobs out there....


He's walked a couple of years in the shoes and he's finding out they are not Gucci loafers...



This is a crisis - and it is worsening rather than improving ....


And this is in spite of many trillions of dollars of stimulus.....

Ed - The points you raise are on a different topic..namely why is the western developed world failing to provide well paid jobs for its youth. Whereas the east/developing world is doing much better. (dont forget only a couple of decennia ago it was the other way round).

I cannot comment on the guy you know, but I can tell you I know many many of people working in IT related jobs, who without IT would be out of work.

Now I think of it...... Ed - isnt your line of business internet and IT related ;-)

As indicated above I believe there are number of factors at work here - not just computers - offshoring and the global Depression we have been in for 5 years are also contributing.



Ultimately though this is a zero sum game - if you move 1000 factory jobs to China from America that does not create 1000 new factory jobs... it creates of course 0 new jobs.


What that does do however is create 1000 low paying jobs - and it destroys the fabric of western countries because when you offshore the jobs and you are unable to replace those jobs (and the facts are there are no jobs to replace them) you destroy your economy.


Assuming the world remains globalized i.e. the unemployed in the west do not lash out and force trade barriers to be resurrected - I expect what will happen is developed countries will soon begin to resemble third world nations.


You will have a small very wealthy elite - a relatively small class of professionals - and great masses of low paid/unemployed people.


Look at America - it is already well under way - wealth polarization is off the charts - the middle class is being decimated - 50 million are on food stamps.


Cities are already cutting services ... food stamps payments... policing... etc.... they simply are unable to afford them because the tax base is eroded because people do not have jobs - almost half of all Americans are on some sort of government subsidy.


Anyone who is expecting a full pension or medical care in the not too distant future is dreaming...


What cannot go on forever will not go on forever - so what happens when it ends? When the governments at all levels are forced to wipe out pensions - cut most subsidies?


Have a look at the Philippines... that is what you end up with.


So what do the people do? Well they starve - or they agree to compete with workers in China, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico etc...


And because this is a zero sum game - and populations keep increasing - this puts even more pressure on salaries - already you can see garment factories shifting their operations out of China to Bangladesh because people will work for less than a dollar a day...



As for IT I am running what is effectively a newspaper with a handful of people. I am a job destroyer.


Massive classifieds sites in the US have obliterated hundreds of thousands of jobs - they have put thousands of newspapers out of business (or forced them to scale back) because they stole their cash cow classifieds businesses...


Computers have indeed created new jobs - I am unable to find any data on the nett impact on employment (I can imagine that would be a Herculean if not impossible task)


That said, a huge number of the jobs that have been created in the tech field have been offshored - they are perhaps the easiest to off shore because trade barriers cannot block data...


So in a zero sum game this means very bad news for developed economies.

Indeed people do seem to prefer technology to living life... I am amazed at how groups of people sit at their tables in restaurants each of them engaged in another life on their smart phones... ignoring the people at the table...


http://www.theage.com.au/comment/hey-you-with-the-phone-listen-up-20131101-2ws86.html




Perhaps as this evolves what people can do is live a virtual life on the smart phones... no need to work ... farming becomes totally mechanized... so people simply order meals (on their smart phones of course)... which are delivered by driverless cars... or better still - who needs to eat - that takes time away from the computer... instead just hook up an IV tube that pumps in nutrients...



In such a world people would have no need for material things beyond a small housing pod... and a comfortable chair ... you spend your entire days in your various virtual worlds --- perhaps in one you are a rock star --- in another a star athlete --- or maybe you are a space explorer ... or maybe you just spend your days gaming (many people already do...)


Just because it isn't really doesn't mean you aren't happy - because you could actually live out your dreams...


And if the reality does intrude and you start to think how truly screwed up such a life is.... you just order some more Xanax (using your smartphone)... and another 5 year supply arrives in the driverless car that afternoon



We are well on the way


Only in Japan, Real Men Go to a Hotel With Virtual Girlfriends

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703632304575451414209658940


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FarmVille



Compulsive video gaming is a modern-day psychological disorder that experts tell WebMD is becoming more and more popular.


http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/video-game-addiction-no-fun

i worry less about technology's impact on employment than the accumulation of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Thanks to technological progress productivity has increased in all sectors, as a consequence some people could be working 4 hours a day, or 3 days a week. Their output would be the same as before. Instead they are working longer and longer hours. We have an army of unemployed people that are actually used by capital to keep salaries low and keep those with a job in a state of permanent fear of losing it and easier to exploit, make work overtime etc. . Technological progress in a capitalist society benefits only capital, not workers. That's why profits are soaring, massive wealth creation everywhere you turn. The problem is one of unequal distribution of the fruits of labour. I would be happy to work only 3 days a week for the same money, and another position would be created in my company. Instead, higher productivity made possible by labour-saving technology is translated into higher profit for the capitalist and fewer jobs.

Capitalism is inherently flawed, and very soon we will see how unsustainable it is. Millions of jobless people cannot consume, so they were offered credit cards and mortgages. It didn't work and the house of cards tumbled down in 2008. They kept printing money, but that's just another Ponzi scheme. Hold on to your seats. The game is over.

Speaking of all those jobs that have shifted to Asia (in the zero sum game...)


The total sum is getting smaller:


As China Changes, Infamous Foxconn Goes Robotic

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/02/22/as-china-changes-infamous-foxconn-goes-robotic/


China turns to robots as labour costs rise - FT.com




What will China do with a billion people when robots take over manufacturing?



The United States has been automating its manufacturing for decades, adding robotics to replace workers, especially in the vaunted U.S. automobile industry.


The process has most definitely taken its toll on Americans with low- to mid-level skills. In fact, the U.S. has lost 6 million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.


Many of those were lost due to globalization - the outsourcing of production to developing nations with cheaper labor forces. But a lot of those jobs were also lost due to automation.


Enter China.


China's manufacturing workforce set to shrink in the coming years


The economic miracle of Asia employs millions of low-skilled workers in factories that churn out everything from the latest dollar-store kitchen gizmo to supercomputers. That's good news for Chinese leaders; a working population is more politically stable than a poor, unemployed workforce.


But what would happen if that large workforce were replaced by robots? How much unrest - domestically and geopolitically - would a restless, underemployed China create?


Well, the fact is, turnabout is fair play; as U.S. workers fell prey to automation and robots in the 20th century, losing many jobs to places like China, the Asian giant appears to be on the verge of a robotics revolution itself. Per The Wall Street Journal:


A new worker's revolution is rising in China and it doesn't involve humans.


With soaring wages and an aging population, electronics factory managers say the day is approaching when robotic workers will replace people on the Chinese factory floor.


A new wave of industrial robots is in development, ranging from high-end humanoid machines with vision, touch and even learning capabilities, to low-cost robots vying to undercut China's minimum wage.


The paper says that, over the next half-decade, robotics technologies are sure to transform China's factories. And Chinese executives say that's fine with them, considering that there may actually, in the short term, be a labor shortage, as fewer of China's youth consider manual labor as a way to make a living.


But clearly change is coming, and how it plays out will affect both how much of the world's electronic manufacturing remains in China and how the massive shift from human to robotic labor will affect the country's working demographic.


No one believes that China's shift to automation will happen overnight. Most executives, in fact, believe the process will take years, because the challenges are many, including the high cost of advanced robots, technical limitations and little flexibility in bringing robots to factory floors.


"If your orders decrease, you can lay off workers," Tim Li, senior vice president of Taiwanese PC contract manufacturer Quanta Computer Inc., told WSJ. "You can't lay off robots."


Robotics is good for Chinese manufacturers, but not so much for Chinese workers


Across the way in Taiwan, a company there - Delta - sees the coming robotics transition in mainland China and is acting. The firm is working to develop robots cheaply enough to replace human workers in China's gargantuan factories.


"It's clear that automation is the future trend in China, but the big question is how to bring down the costs for robots," Delta Chairman Yancey Hai told the paper. "We believe we can do that because we manufacture two-thirds of the components ourselves."


Much of this development could pan out for U.S. firms and American workers too, in the form of U.S. companies that manufacture robots. Some human workers will always be needed in the manufacturing process.


But if China's development leads to massive lay-offs of otherwise unskilled workers, where will they go? What will they do? Will they be "retrained" to do something else, or be left behind, as many American workers were?


The answers to these questions will decide the fate of China's future, as well as the future of stability in China's Asian neighborhood.



http://www.naturalnews.com/042357_china_robotic_labor_manufacturing.html

The reason that there is astronomical youth unemployment in southern Europe and parts of America is entirely structural and government inflicted. The full causes of these unemployment problems are minimum wage laws, anti-discrimination laws, anti-firing laws, anti-business regulations, high taxation, mandatory healthcare regulation, high property prices and anti-internship laws. If you remove all of these things then the youth would be employed within days.


Let's examine each briefly.


Minimm wage: If a young inexperienced worker can only generate $5 of revenue per hour but minimum wage is $7 then he will never be hired. Take a recent example - American Samoa produced almost all of America's tuna until just a few years ago when Congress began enforcing federal minimum wages on Samoa. The new minimum wage caused one of the three factories to close, laying off 2,000 employees along with another 1,000 at the other canneries. With a working population of only 16,000 people, this dramatic loss to the economy was the equivalent of dropping a nuclear bomb on the territory - and it was entirely government inflicted.


Anti-discrimination laws: if a white and black applicant apply to a job and the black applicant is not supremely more qualified then he will never be hired. Why? Because anti-discrimination laws mean he can sue and will assuredly win if he is ever fired, or even just not promoted as quickly as he wants. Hiring minorities, and women, is a giant liability because of these laws that are intended to protect them (but in reality bar them from ever getting the job in the first place).


Anti-firing laws prevent youth from ever being hired because if they turn out to not be good employees the boss cannot fire them and will for decades be forced to pay salaries to a loss-making employee. Net effect? Employers do not take the risk of hiring a young person, they'd rather just hire a middle-aged person with proven experience. If they truly must hire a youth then it will be done through nepotism and connections because that helps the employer ensure that his new hire is of good quality.


Anti-business regulations prevent young people from being entrepreneurial and starting their own businesses to employ not only themselves but others. How can a young Greek start a business when it requires them to first jump through volumes of legal regulations and licensing, all of which is fully unknowable but punishable if you violate. Starting a business in many Western countries requires hiring professional lawyers to work their way through the red tape for you. What young person can afford that or have the energy to work through such mind-numbing and soul-crushingly useless bureaucracies? Net effect is that there is little new small business activity to create employment for the masses and innovate new products to satisfy the market. The big businesses got into business when there was no redtape and then threw up giant barriers around to keep competitors out.


High-taxation causes people to not invest and create new jobs. Why invest 10 million Euros in a new factory that will employ 500 when you will lose half of your profits and became the scourge of the city for being a business owner? Of course this assumes that there will even be a single euro of profit made - most ventures fail. So what upside does the business owner have? A medium probability of profit, half of which will be taxed away and high probability of failure and loss of full investment? Most business owners do the rational thing and not invest because the incentives are no longer high enough to balance out the potentially immense loss - they instead just buy diamonds and art. Furthermore, we all know these western governments are bankrupt beyond all repair, so it is obvious that huge tax increases are on the horizon - what is easier to tax than a giant new factory building locked to the ground it sits on? Business owners know they are fish in a barrel waiting for the taxman to come shooting.


Mandatory healthcare further raises the cost of employment for a low-skilled worker by 20-50%. If an employee is not profitable for a business at $7 an hour then how can the business owner even fleetingly consider hiring them at a loss AND purchase their new Obamacare $500 / month healthcare plan?


High property prices prevent new small business entrepreneurs from setting up shop because the rents are too steep and the purchase prices are ungodly unobtainable. Governments, like HK, artificially strangle property supply. Even places where property is seemingly lowly regulated like the US are not in fact so because of zoning laws and view-protection regulations that prevent new construction from obstructing anyone's view. On top of that any renovation must be carried out to the government's regulations which literally number in the thousands of pages long and require you to hire rent-seeking contractors that can certify that you passed the inane and illogical government requirements. One frustrating personal experience I have with this is renovating a 1800's historic home into a new professional office for lawyers / doctors etc. Two story home and the local government demanded installation of an elevator in event that a handicapped person ever wanted to see the second floor. This battle carried on for one year before we settled by agreeing to install a monstrously ugly concrete wheelchair ramp on this beautiful old historic home. How much money, time and effort was lost to this? Worse off is that this was the last property we ever renovated - never again will we risk getting railroaded by the government. How many jobs are lost and economic growth never created because of petty rules like that?


Anti-internship laws prevent young people from ever getting their first job experience. A person straight out of high school or college often has zero marketable skills and thus an internship is a perfect place for them to learn important skills in a 3-month period. More importantly, businesses often hire their own interns so the internship is usually a path to full employment. But now that countries like the US have banned internships, businesses are left with sorting through thousands of resumes of zero-skilled college graduates. And because each zero-skill PhD looks identical to the next, they often resort to just hiring via connections. Prior to this a company could take on 20 low or no paid interns and then hire the top 10 - not possible anymore.


These things above are the perpetual job killers that cause permanent long-term unemployment. Without these barriers unemployment would be almost fully non-existent as is the case in free market societies like Hong Kong and Singapore. It is notable that in Industrial Revolution America, despite all of the massive technological innovations that obliterated farming labor (which was the vast majority of the economy), unemployment still remained low because those who lost their farm job were able to easily innovate a new skill or profession to re-employ themselves into. But you cannot do that in a society like modern America that has impossibly high hurdles for poor entrepreneurs.


Point to note is that it is precisely in computers and the internet that young entrepreneurs are able to find employment by creating their own businesses. It is by the very nature that these are still new technologies that the government has not yet been able to create oppressive regulations that protect the insiders and block outsiders from ever entering the field.

I believe the bigger picture at play here - is that we have reached the beginning of the end of cheap energy/resources - which means are approaching or perhaps reached the end of growth...



And there are some very big guns who have reached the same conclusion:


Researchers at the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say that, at this rate, the planet is likely to be plagued by a “global economic collapse” in fewer than two decades if humans continue to gobble up natural resources at the same rate they are today.


http://rt.com/usa/global-collapse-mit-predict-376/



German Government: Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis


A study by a German military think tank has analyzed how "peak oil" might change the global economy. The internal draft document -- leaked on the Internet -- shows for the first time how carefully the German government has considered a potential energy crisis.


http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/peak-oil-and-the-german-government-military-study-warns-of-a-potentially-drastic-oil-crisis-a-715138.html

well I guess most here are too young to remember Woody Allen's orgasmatron :)

Ed,


If anything the end of cheap energy would increase employment as people are forced back to doing more mundane tasks like farming. Productivity will decrease which means you need more people to get the same amount of work done.


But the end of cheap energy, if it comes, would be disastrous for quality of living.

Yes agree... I suppose though if quality of living is defined as buying more stuff... then some might say a decline in quality of living would be a good thing...


I am in the middle of an online organic farming course - and the biggest input into pesticides and industrial fertilizer is petroleum products - to create fertilizers requires intense heat... so expensive energy is a problem there...


Was also speaking to a mate here in Bali earlier - his family has a large farm in Australia... he indicates that petrol is a massive part of the cost of running a large farm ... the large machines guzzle gas as do the trucks that haul crops to the cities...


When you are on a dollar a day and food prices start to rise --- that spells trouble.


So I think end of cheap energy would make for a choppy transition to this new jobs economy envisioned...

This Waiter Doesn't Need a Tip


How restaurants will use tablet computers to replace servers.


http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/04/this_waiter_doesnt_need_a_tip.html



My wife was in Singapore recently and one restaurant she visited had done away with all serving staff...

Jamba Juice, in order to battle a 4% drop in Q3 same store sales has decided to radically transform its entire retailing strategy by getting rid of labor, cheap, part-time or otherwise, altogether.


Presenting the biggest threat to minimum-wage restaurant workers everywhere: the JambaGo self-serve machine that just made the vast majority of Jamba's employees obsolete.


Coming soon to a fast-food retailer near you.


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-12/biggest-threat-minimum-wage-restaurant-workers-everywhere

Yes malka... they will have to find something else to do... question is what... and that is increasingly the question in countries that have double digit unemployment amongst the young

Europe's lost generation


http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2013/11/europe-lost-generation-201311138460897500.html

Sorry to pour cold water on this:


In North Dakota’s Bakken shale, a well formally known as Robert Heuer 1-17R put out 2,358 barrels in May 2004, when it went live. The output proved there was money to be made drilling in the Bakken and kicked off an oil rush in North Dakota. Continental Resources (CLR), the well’s operator, built a monument to it.


Production declined 69 percent in the first year. “I look at shale as more of a retirement party than a revolution,” says Art Berman, a petroleum geologist who spent 20 years with what was then Amoco and now runs his own firm, Labyrinth Consulting Services, in Sugar Land, Tex. “It’s the last gasp.”


http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-10/u-dot-s-dot-shale-oil-boom-may-not-last-as-fracking-wells-lack-staying-power




THE FRACKING PONZI SCHEME


Robert Ayres, a scientist and professor at the Paris-based INSEAD business school, wrote recently that a "mini-bubble" is being inflated by shale gas enthusiasts. “Drilling for oil in the U.S. in 2012 was at the rate of 25,000 new wells per year, just to keep output at the same level as it was in the year 2000, when only 5,000 wells were drilled."


http://www.forbes.com/sites/insead/2013/05/08/shale-oil-and-gas-the-contrarian-view/





Why America's Shale Oil Boom Could End Sooner Than You Think


http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2013/06/13/why-americas-shale-oil-boom-could-end-sooner-than-you-think/

I am seeing nothing that scientifically contradicts the info I have posted above - what I do see is hype claiming the US has 100 years of shale oil... no supporting evidence whatsoever


What would be the motive of INSEAD or the one geologist who makes his living off of shale oil to say this is a 'last gasp'?


If you can find any research that contradicts the above studies I'd be interested to see that....


I know that EXXON bought XTO shale for 41B - and their market capped dropped 40B a couple of days later - geologists and analysts were quoted as saying 'shale is hype - deposited are hyped'

High energy prices = starvation ...


The green revolution was a result of using cheap energy to create man-made pesticides and fertilizers... when the price of energy used to make those two things goes up so too does the cost of food... when you make a dollar a day you ride a fine line between feeding your family and starving...


The fact that we are fracking - which is VERY expensive and VERY polluting - indicates that we do not have any alternatives... certainly none that are cheaper

Scientists Wary of Shale Oil and Gas as U.S. Energy Salvation


After 10 years of production, shale gas in the United States cannot be considered commercially viable, according to several scientists presenting at the Geological Society of America meeting in Denver on Monday. They argue that while the use of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling for "tight oil" is an important contributor to U.S. energy supply, it is not going to result in long-term sustainable production or allow the U.S. to become a net oil exporter.




Charles A.S. Hall, professor emeritus at the College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, Syracuse, is an expert on how much energy it takes to extract energy, and therefore which natural resources offer the best energy return on investment (EROI). He will describe two studies: one of the global patterns of fossil-fuel production in the past decade, and the other of oil production patterns from the Bakken Field (the giant expanse of oil-bearing shale rock underneath North Dakota and Montana that is being produced using hydraulic fracturing).


Both studies show that despite a tripling of prices and of expenditures for oil exploration and development, the production of nearly all countries has been stagnant at best and more commonly is declining -- and that prices do not allow for any growth in most economies.


"The many trends of declining EROIs suggest that depletion and increased exploitation rates are trumping new technological developments," Hall said.


J. David Hughes, president of the Canadian firm Global Sustainability Research Inc., echoes Hall with an analysis of the Bakken Field and the Eagle Ford Field of Texas, which together comprise more than half of U.S. tight oil production. It shows that drilling must continue at high levels, to overcome field decline rates of 40 percent per year.


Drilling rates of more than 3,000 wells annually in the Eagle Ford, and more than 1,800 wells annually in the Bakken, are sufficient to offset field decline and grow production -- for now. If drilling at these high rates is maintained, production will continue to grow in both fields for a few more years until field decline balances new production. At that point drilling rates will have to increase as "sweet spots" (relatively small high-productivity portions of the total play area) are exhausted and drilling moves into lower-productivity regions, in order to further grow or even maintain production.


The onset of production decline will likely begin before the end of the decade, Hughes said. "These sweet spots yield the high early production observed in these plays, but the steep decline rates inevitably take their toll. "


Arthur E. Berman, a geological consultant for Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc., of Sugar Land, Texas, deems the U.S. 10-year history of shale-gas extraction "a commercial failure. " However, he says, this will not be the case forever. "Prices will increase to, at least, meet the marginal cost of production. More responsible companies will dominate and prosper as the U.S. gas market re-balances and weaker players disappear."


Hughes sums up: "Tight oil is an important contributor to the U.S. energy supply, but its long-term sustainability is questionable. It should be not be viewed as a panacea for business as usual in future U.S. energy security planning."


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131028141516.htm

The Robots Are Here


The rise of robots and artificial intelligence presages greater inequalities and more conservative politics. “Those with the skills to work seamlessly with technology are increasingly rewarded, while those whose jobs can just as easily be done by foreigners, robots or lines of code suffer accordingly … Americans will also become more politically conservative, as the digital winners seize control of the narrative”


http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/11/the-robots-are-here-98995.html

Robots May Revolutionize China's Electronics Manufacturing


A new worker's revolution is rising in China and it doesn't involve humans.


With soaring wages and an aging population, electronics factory managers say the day is approaching when robotic workers will replace people on the Chinese factory floor.


A new wave of industrial robots is in development, ranging from high-end humanoid machines with vision, touch and even learning capabilities, to low-cost robots vying to undercut China's minimum wage.


http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303759604579093122607195610

What Will Your Bank Look Like 5 Years From Now?


Several major banks are understood to be in talks to introduce "express" branches, which would be similar to self-service checkouts in supermarkets. These smaller outlets would be almost completely devoid of human interaction.


More http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/michael-shedlock/what-will-your-bank-look-like-five-years



Was in Vancouver recently... the check out lines in some grocery stores are mostly automated now... so the days of the check out teller are numbered...


As this pervades industry --- I am left wondering -- what are the masses of people going to do?


Blue collar workers are becoming dinosaurs - as evidenced by the massive unemployment levels for those without university degrees


Even those WITH degrees are finding it difficult to get jobs (e.g. http://lawschooltuitionbubble.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/structural-unemployment-plagues-u-s-legal-sector/)



We can say upgrade your skills - but even with upgraded skills there are nowhere near enough jobs to go around ...



Sure - there may be a development that helps absorb the massive numbers of under 25s who are unable to find work --- but there is nothing on the horizon....


Things are getting worse - not better... and the longer these kids remain out of work research says the less likely they are to be able to find work going forward as their skills and knowledge erode.

As Fast Food Workers Go On Strike In 100 Cities, Applebees Unveils The "Waiter Terminator"


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-05/fast-food-workers-go-strike-100-cities-applebees-unveils-waiter-terminator


So when computer terminals replace all these people --- what are they supposed to do for work?



Another disturbing development coming out of this --- as the ranks of the jobless continue to swell --- more people trying to land fewer and fewer jobs means employers pay less....


And before you know it --- the middle class is gone --- well not gone, they'll be working in conditions similar to those in Bangladesh - otherwise they starve.


On the brighter side of things - this might inspire a modern day Dickens and we could get some great literature out of this.

Is Your Job About To Be Outsourced By A Computer (The Probability Is 47%)


Productivity. Every employer loves it, and every employee is fascinated by it, especially if it comes in cute colors, a retina screen, and weighs under a pound... at least until such time as "productivity" results in the loss of the employee's job, which in turn makes the employer love it even more as it results in even higher profits, even if it means one more pink slip and a 91 million people outside the labor force.


With a labor force already in turmoil as millions drop out every year never to be heard from again, made obscolete by the latest technological and computerized innovation, and students stuck in college where they pile up record amounts of student loans (at last check well over $1 trillion) hoping form some job, any job, upon graduation, unfortunately the future is not bright at all.


In a recently published paper, "The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation," Oxford researchers Frey and Osborne, look at the probability of computerization by occuption. What they find is shocking for nearly half of the US labor force, and especially those in the transportation, production, office support, sales, service and extraction professions.


JPM's Michael Cembalest summarizes it as follows:


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-11/your-job-about-be-handed-over-computer-probability-47

Retailers for the most part have had horrible Christmas sales... Macey's has just laid off thousands and is closing stores --- JC Penney is on the cusp of insolvency....


Of course this is to a great extent a product of the fact that the jobs situation is dire --- but also people are migrating to shopping online....


Let's have a look at an Amazon warehouse .... notice how there are so few workers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UxZDJ1HiPE

It is an invisible force that goes by many names. Computerization. Automation. Artificial intelligence. Technology. Innovation. And, everyone's favorite, ROBOTS.


Whatever name you prefer, some form of it has been stoking progress and killing jobs—from seamstresses to paralegals—for centuries. But this time is different: Nearly half of American jobs today could be automated in "a decade or two," according to a new paper by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, discussed recently in The Economist.


More http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/what-jobs-will-the-robots-take/283239/

I don't think the creative people are at risk --- but blue collar workers have a huge problem --- and not everyone can be an engineer or creative director....



And as evidenced by under 25 unemployment rates from 20% to nearly 60% in many big western economies... we are not creating enough jobs to replace those that are increasingly being done by robots/computers.



We experienced this when mechanized farming was introduced -- the farm hands shifted to factory work --- it remains to be seen if there will be somewhere to shift the factory workers --- so far there is nothing....


And if we don't find a solution soon --- this is going to cause a massive economic and social crisis --- because if these young people can not find work they will not participate in the orgy of consumerism that is our economy --- and that means we don't grow....


Tick tock.....

I think we have one of the best educated global populations eve --- there simply are no jobs - as has been reflected in the youth unemployment numbers in many countries



A person from Spain or Ireland or Greece or America cannot move to Indonesia and work --- or Taiwan --- or Korea....


BTW there is a massive unemployment (or underemployment) problem in Indonesia (and in the Philippines) so there are not enough jobs for foreigners or locals - rather difficult for a foreigner to get a job in these countries - the salaries are very low and the language skills are a problem - as would be the visa --- it is VERY troublesome for a foreigner to work in Indonesia.


There are literally millions of unemployed people in the slums of both of these countries....

Death to Machines?


At the start of the Industrial Revolution, textile workers in the Midlands and the North of England, mainly weavers, staged a spontaneous revolt, smashing machinery and burning factories. Their complaint was that the newfangled machines were robbing them of their wages and jobs.



Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/robert-skidelsky-revisits-the-luddites--claim-that-automation-depresses-real-wages#maVCfPCZYpTqxZDt.99

JPMORGAN SLASHES THOUSANDS OF JOBS


"partly because of technology that allows greater automation of clerical functions in branches."


"The bank is now looking at revamping its existing branch network with smaller buildings that make better use of new technology and require fewer staff. JPMorgan intends to display its "branch of the future" to investors at its Park Avenue headquarters on Tuesday."



http://www.cnbc.com/id/101442047

Rolls-Royce Drone Ships Challenge $375 Billion Industry: Freight


In an age of aerial drones and driver-less cars, Rolls-Royce (RR/) Holdings Plc is designing unmanned cargo ships.


Rolls-Royce’s Blue Ocean development team has set up a virtual-reality prototype at its office in Alesund, Norway, that simulates 360-degree views from a vessel’s bridge. Eventually, the London-based manufacturer of engines and turbines says, captains on dry land will use similar control centers to command hundreds of crewless ships


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-25/rolls-royce-drone-ships-challenge-375-billion-industry-freight.html

Intelligent Machines and Displaced Workers


The rise of so-called smart machines will challenge a fundamental feature of economic life: Most people gain their income by selling their labor.


So what will happen when the labor of a large number of workers is displaced by technology or no longer commands an income adequate to provide a minimally decent standard of living?



Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/#qwZuWvh8o5hvAdug.99

A Machine is Learning Your Job - Now


Who needs an army of lawyers when you have a computer?


When Minneapolis attorney William Greene faced the task of combing through 1.3 million electronic documents in a recent case, he turned to a so-called smart computer program. Three associates selected relevant documents from a smaller sample, “teaching” their reasoning to the computer. The software’s algorithms then sorted the remaining material by importance.


“We were able to get the information we needed after reviewing only 2.3 percent of the documents,” said Greene, a Minneapolis-based partner at law firm Stinson Leonard Street LLP.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-12/your-job-taught-to-machines-puts-half-u-s-work-at-risk.html

Robot doctors? Online lawyers?


http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/15/robot-doctors-online-lawyers-automated-architects-future-professions-jobs-technology

So if computers result in much higher unemployment --- let's say 25% across the developed world...


How will all these unemployed afford the things that robots make for us?


How will they pay taxes to ensure we have schools, hospitals and the thousands of other things a modern society relies on?


And critically --- what happens when tens of millions are displaced and have no income --- where will the money for social programs to support them? Won't many of them turn to crime? Who will pay for the police and jails required to deal with this?


I am not clear as to how all of this would work when the rubber hits the road....

Meet "McCashier" Your $15.00 Per Hour McDonald's Worker ReplacementSure. You can make $15 an hour at McDonald's, at least in Seattle. You just have to perform better than this machine.Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2014/08/heres-your-1500-per-hour-mcdonalds.html

Robots greet, cook and deliver dishes at this restaurant in China http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/Robots-greet-cook-and-deliver-dishes-at-this-restaurant-in-China/articleshow/40268100.cms

Meet the Robot That Makes 360 Gourmet Burgers Per Hour

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/meet-the-robot-that-makes-360-gourmet-burgers-per-hour

Robots About to Take Away 18 Million German Jobs, 59 Percent of Germany's Work Force?

I have seen many grim predictions regarding robots taking away human jobs, but one of the most dire predictions comes from a study commissioned by ING-Diba.

The study claims that 59 percent of Germany's work force could be replaced by machines and software in the coming decades.

Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2015/05/robots-about-to-take-away-18-million.html#dffJC1KPZ53FcYBM.99

http://www.thelocal.de/jobs/article/are-robots-about-to-take-away-18-million-jobs

Nice This is Awesome, Thanks

How Canada’s oilsands are paving the way for driverless trucks — and the threat of big layoffs

http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Canada+oilsands+paving+driverless+trucks+threat+layoffs/11118375/story.html

RBS Goes to Robo-Advisors, Fires Hundreds; Real Advisor Requires £250,000


The Royal Bank of Scotland fired 220 advisors and instead will use robots to answer customer's investment questions. To talk to a real person you need £250,000. That's about $362,000. RBS says this is what customers want.

http://mishtalk.com/2016/03/17/rbs-goes-to-robo-advisors-fires-hundreds-real-advisor-requires-250000/