36 per cent of British jobs vulnerable to automation?

Forget immigrants, is the biggest threat to UK wages from automation?

Think about your local supermarket which used to be staffed 100% by people at the till, but now you can just self-serve.

Think about CRC and Wiggle – no need for hundreds of LBSs around the country – just a couple of small local businesses coupled with online videos from ParkTools and the like allowing us to do most maintenance for ourselves.

Think about online and mobile banking instead of going into a branch.

Wages for low-skilled jobs are already massively suppressed – UKIP and the like prefer to blame “immigrants” but technology is as likely to be the cause of this as anything else, the examples are everywhere around us…

On the other hand, online estate agents replacing ill-educated spivs with bad suits and bad haircuts telling lies for a living, there’s sunlight on the horizon 😀

Yep, local picture framing shop has just shut and yet another Estate Agent has opened. So there is hope yet for the ill-educated spivs with bad suits and bad haircuts 😉

On a more serious note, globalisation + industrialisation is making many manual labour jobs redundant, I think we’re going to be stuck with an unemployed under class indefinitely…..

I remember watching programs as a kid in the 70’s (tomorrows world type stuff). That predicted how automation would reduce working hours free up leisure time and make everyone life so much better. Unfortunately it has been used to consolidate wealth into the hands of the few, increase working hours for many, and write of a large minority of society as an unemployed underclass.

The whole leisure time thing forgot that we all compete globally for a limited set of resources, so you can’t just selectively down tools and chill out if the other countries don’t as you’ll just go backwards in terms of technology / living standards and ultimately risk being invaded etc…

We’re going to need more call centres for people to call when their robot stops working or eats the cat.

We’re going to need more call centres for people to call when their robot stops working or eats the cat.

That’s where you’re wrong.
It’ll be a self-repairing robot cat

Plus we can staff call centres with robots…

no need to worry just yet.

it’s when robots can design, make, and program themselves that we’ll be in trouble.

mind you, robots that can do all that will probably be self aware, and it won’t be long before they’ve got death rays unions, and pensions and all that guff. employing a super-intelligent self-aware robot will be more problematic than employing a cheap stupid human.

Think about your local supermarket which used to be staffed 100% by people at the till, but now you can just self-serve.

The impact of this should be easy to verify with figures – do the supermarkets actually employed fewer staff now they have the auto checkouts?

That predicted how automation would reduce working hours free up leisure time and make everyone life so much better.

Well, in the home it has a bit, but only to a point. Most of us have dishwashers, washing machines, fridges and freezers which help save us personal work time. As for time spent at your job – of course it wasn’t going to result in shorter hours. It just makes you more productive in the same number of hours, obviously.

Anyway this debate about mechanisation has been going on for 200 years at least, nothing new today.

Who’ll be the last to be replaced?

What’s harder – to replicate the knowledge of a doctor or the physical skill of a plumber?

footflaps – Member
The whole leisure time thing forgot that we all compete globally for a limited set of resources, so you can’t just selectively down tools and chill out if the other countries don’t as you’ll just go backwards in terms of technology / living standards and ultimately risk being invaded etc…

But if we all worked a 4 day week we could employ an extra 20% of people reducing the expenditure in benefits and having an extra day on the bike. Overall output would be maintained. Of course we would have to accept having 20% less income unless someone was actually willing to accept that redistribution of wealth was a good thing.

footflaps – Member
Plus we can staff call centres with robots…

Already in place sonny…

Automated call reactions based upon callers answers and hesitation rates already here and working fine.
Public like to hear “northern” or “irish” accents so this is being built into automation voice responses.

OLB and Pngit and Touch already here, more tech coming in paybypone tap or swipe here but not quite 100% reliable, but more reliable that Joe Public remembering passwords etc.

I foresee a reduction in Banking Branches by 40% over the next 15 years, call center reduction by 50% over 10 years as automation takes hold. Indian call centers already on the decrease as wages climb to the levels of UK..

And the Google car rollout to full UK wide release in 10 years.

What’s harder – to replicate the knowledge of a doctor or the physical skill of a plumber?

Doctors won’t be around for long, or the legal profession. The whole upper-middle class knowledge based professions will be gone before they know they’re even under threat.

I remember watching programs as a kid in the 70’s (tomorrows world type stuff). That predicted how automation would reduce working hours free up leisure time and make everyone life so much better.

This is very true, the single greatest lie told in my lifetime imo.

Instead of reducing the working week down to 2 or 3 days, as we were told it would, and the huge expansion of the leisure industry which we were told would be the result, new technology/automation has resulted in greater profits for the few while greater employment vulnerability/lower wages for the many.

A simple understanding of capitalism could of course have predicted all that.

A simple understanding of capitalism could of course have predicted all that.

Communism, of course, delivered a better outcome for ordinary people.

And no ordinary people in China, India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Africa, Brazil etc became better off under globalisation.

On the other hand, increased automation/use of computers has almost certainly led directly to the obesity crisis. I’m sitting here at my desk all day rather than moving, which is what my body was built for…

Who’ll be the last to be replaced?

What’s harder – to replicate the knowledge of a doctor or the physical skill of a plumber?

Both are replaceable; we will see medical diagnosis delegated to computers and/or outsourced the lowest bidder. The same applies to the plumber things like Bathroom Pods will replace on site construction in new builds. More complicated equipment (boilers and washing machines) will have diagnostics added and be connected to the internet.

You will also start to see the appearance of wearable health monitoring devices replacing regular trips to the doctors for chronic conditions.
In both cases you will need someone to do the fitting/surgery and there will still be a need for both the emergency plumber and clinician. Neither job will disappear but they will change the risk is that they become deskilled

brooess – Member

A simple understanding of capitalism could of course have predicted all that.

Communism, of course, delivered a better outcome for ordinary people.

I’m sorry, how does what communism does or doesn’t do affect the nature of capitalism – can you explain?

The motivation behind capitalism is to maximize profits, any ways of reducing costs are used to that end. Unless you know otherwise ?

EDIT : An explanation concerning why there was a need to lie about the consequences of new technology/automation would be useful too.

As Skynet becomes self-aware, humans must prepare for Judgment Day

🙂

I dunno. There are still some pretty big obstacles to getting robots , expert systems etc. to do real world things in a useful way on the sort of scale that means you could start firing people.
I think doctors and plumbers will be around for a while yet.

brooess – Member
….when their robot stops working or eats the cat.

It’ll be a self-repairing robot cat.

Getting back to the more serious issues, what happens if a self-repairing robot cat eats another self-repairing robot cat?

Automation should have allowed reduced working hours for everyone. Job sharing could do the same but it would need the redistribution of wealth from the top and that’s never going go happen.

Getting back to the more serious issues, what happens if a self-repairing robot cat eats another self-repairing robot cat?

It gets no robot kibbles for a week and has to sleep in the shed.

Getting back to the more serious issues, what happens if a self-repairing robot cat eats another self-repairing robot cat?

Robot Cat Wars obviously. It’d make a great TV show 😀

molgrips – Member

do the supermarkets actually employed fewer staff now they have the auto checkouts?

Surely they’ve cut their hours and now let them go home earlier on the same wages ?

Karel ?apek’s R.U.R – nearly 100 years old – prescient…

Automation should have allowed reduced working hours for everyone.

Well it would, if employers were more flexible. However, the natural desire for people to a) want more money and b) do what they’re used to would mean that many people would work traditional hours and make more money. This would then contribute towards inflation, so your reduced salary would start to go even less far and drive you back to working full time.

Here’s another point though – are our jobs becoming more interesting? Instead of spending every working day of our lives putting caps on bottles in a factory, we have the chance to do something a bit more interesting instead? Then again, do we care? Personally I would be seriously depressed working in a factory, but some people seem to love it.

This would then contribute towards inflation

It’s been a while since I’ve heard the “we can’t pay better wages because it will cause inflation” argument 😀

Presumably because with permanent mass unemployment people now lack the ability to request meaningful wage rises.

Who’ll be the last to be replaced?

Probably me*.

*IA, autonomous systems R&D**

**well, except from the fact I’ve always said I’ll know I’m doing my job right when the time-traveller appears to terminate me and prevent my work.

The problem with resisting the “rise of the machines” is that we don’t actually have much of an employment problem. Employment has stayed remarkably healthy during the financial crisis. However we do have a productivity issue.

For each hour worked in this country we now produce a lot less than in 2007. It turns out companies didn’t get rid of people to maintain profits during the crisis, instead they paid the people they had less.

The challenge facing this country is not one of employing more people but getting more out of the people who are employed. For each individual to be more productive. But instead of this enabling companies to reduce the size of the workforce it needs to great growth.

I.e. spend the same amount of time creating more stuff.

Automation must play a role in this. Done right, with growth creating productivity gains, this will enable companies to increase wages without increasing prices, therefore reducing the relative cost of living.

This needs sensible legislation to prevent it just being a way for the rich getting richer. Most of this legislation would have to be fairly lefty, things like increased minimum wages, enforced reduced working hours. Basically rules to prevent…

the natural desire for people to a) want more money and b) do what they’re used to would mean that many people would work traditional hours and make more money. This would then contribute towards inflation, so your reduced salary would start to go even less far and drive you back to working full time.

The motivation behind capitalism is to maximize profits, any ways of reducing costs are used to that end. Unless you know otherwise ?

Good job we don’t live in a capitalist society then? Or may be we do but profit maximisation is not (by a long shot) the principal motivation in business. In fact there are surprisingly few examples of businesses run purely to maximise profits. Even if they were, a unique focus on cutting costs would not be the answer.

One of the biggest UK industries has been driven for most of my adult life by a fixation on revenue maximisation with scant regard for profits let alone ROCE. First year Econ text books may say one thing, but real life gives a v different answer.

It should come as no surprise that unskilled labour faces a very daunting future. Education and training is the key, but not something we tend to do very well or prioritise enough sadly.

However we do have a productivity issue.

V true although this (crucial) fact gets lost in the noise. Higher wages plus lower productivity => ???

In fact there are surprisingly few examples of businesses run purely to maximise profits.

😆

Machines/tech are great – weekly shop done on-line in the middle of the night and delivered in the morning, no need to expensive encyclopedias, just google, ability to compare prices more freely putting power in the hands of the consumer, ability to see global news at an instant, read zillions of bike reviews at the flick of a switch, even debate cycling topics with hundreds of strangers, talk to relatives overseas with pictures and for free. Amazing stuff!

Draw the line at bloody Apple autospell thought!

Higher wages plus lower productivity => ???

Ohh, I know, I know!

Is it “inflation” sir?

Thinking more about income inequality. Fewer people will be employed but those that are will be paid more. Yet, amazing how often folk who claim to be representing workers get this one consistently wrong!

In fact there are surprisingly few examples of businesses run purely to maximise profits.

Surprising in that it’s not 100%?

Shareholders tend to be interested in profit, the only thing to debate is on what time frame to aim at profit maximization, we’re quite short-term here.

Nah, economics as a subject is weaker for the fact that the assumption of profit maximisation plays such a central role at least at a basic level.

S’holders should be more interested in profitability than profits, but let’s not opens that old chestnut up again 😉

Thinking more about income inequality. Fewer people will be employed but those that are will be paid more. Yet, amazing how often folk who claim to be representing workers get this one consistently wrong!

If you’ve got lower productivity then you will need more people to create the same amount of stuff, not less, but if these people need higher wages then you either go bust or sell your “stuff” for more, causing inflation.

Income inequality is the inevititable consequence of our particular brand of capitalism where having money is more lucrative than making stuff and this vicious circle is enabled by inherited wealth. It’s not really linked to productivity. You could have income inequality with high or low productivity.

The key is growth. Higher productivity could be used to drive growth or profit margin. We need legislation to save us from ourselves and the belief that hard work is good for us. It is this that companies can exploit to grow their profit margins.

Legislation? Like France maybe? Quite keen on that I suppose but that sort of control is against my principles really.

I’d happily work less for proportionately less pay but I can afford to – but only if I can feel sure I’ll be employed for the next 20 years. As I don’t feel confident I still try to work as much as possible to cover potential rainy days.

Yes and no. Accept inflation point – cost push inflation (tick).

But if you increase the cost of labour (supply shift) without increasing productivity you will get a reduction in the demand for labour. Hence a lower quantity of labour employed, but those who are will receive higher wages than before. One consequence of that is inevitably higher inequality (although this is obviously only one factor involved).

At the moment, the powers that be believe that we can continue to stimulate the economy without a threat of inflation because of the current output gap. There is plenty of slack in the economy (in their opinion) before we have an inflation issue and plenty of room to improve productivity.