
Automation Alone Isn’t Killing Jobs - evolve2k
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/business/automation-alone-isnt-killing-jobs.html
======
sirdogealot
I don't get the "back in my grandpappy's day the steam engines left and we
still survivded" notion that automation is not killing jobs. Most everybody
was employable back in the 1820s. Simply because of the fact that there was no
automation. Train took your horse carriage job? Go work in the fields.

If all department stores adopted automated cashiers, the cashier as a retail
option as we know it is dead. Killed.

If all farms adopt tractors and automatic harvesting machines, the crop picker
option as we know it is dead. Killed.

Etc. Etc.

There will come a time when we can conceive of a new task to be completed,
while simultaneously sketching up the automatic machine to complete the task.

In fact, this job-killing-automation already exists in the form of the latest
and greatest production lines. They were not built to be filled with workers,
only product.

~~~
philwelch
You can still work in the fields if you want to. Farmers are finding lots of
their crops withering away and dying at harvest time because we're doing too
good a job of keeping illegal immigrants out. People just refuse the work.

~~~
rwallace
I'm curious about that; do you have any references to data on this phenomenon
and theories about the cause?

~~~
philwelch
[http://m.siouxcityjournal.com/iowa-farm-labor-shortage-
fuels...](http://m.siouxcityjournal.com/iowa-farm-labor-shortage-fuels-
immigrant-
debate/article_db32e2b7-d390-5423-8804-ab2e2a6ec341.html?mobile_touch=true)

[http://www.cnbc.com/id/48725145](http://www.cnbc.com/id/48725145)

[http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3996502/](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3996502/)

[http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324866904578513...](http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324866904578513510141995612?mobile=y)

[http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2014/02/15/2830734/farm-
labor-...](http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2014/02/15/2830734/farm-labor-
shortages-spread-across.html)

------
increment_i
Bit of an awkward narrative. Has that undergrad "crank it out the night before
its due" quality to it. Lots of words, none of them really saying anything.

~~~
malandrew
I feel like people upvoted this without reading it first.

------
pcurve
This is a throw-everything-and-see-what-sticks... kind of article. Financial
crisis, long term unemployment stigma, business cycle, technology,
demographics, all crammed into 1 page, and doesn't really answer its own
question. A very frustrating read.

------
pmorici
"There is also a special problem for some young men, namely those with
especially restless temperaments. They aren’t always well-suited to the new
class of service jobs, like greeting customers or taking care of the aged,
which require much discipline or sometimes even a subordination of will."

Did the above line from the article strike anyone else as flagrantly sexist?

~~~
bowlofpetunias
Let's try a little exercise in reversing the problem:

"There is also a special problem for some young women, namely those with
especially docile temperaments. They aren't always well-suited to professional
careers, like making hard sales or managing grown men, which require much
confidence and sometimes even exercising authority."

Yes, dripping with it.

Although more condescending than outright sexist. I'm guessing the author
comes from a privileged background.

------
MWil
Automation has always been an interesting topic to me. I wrote my upper level
paper in law school on automation for a labor law class. Unless something has
changed recently, the Supreme Court hasn't really addressed whether
intentional "job killing" from automation qualifies as anti-union activity.
The last time the Court did talk much about it the new cool technology was
cold type setting.

------
evolve2k
We're getting mixed messages as to if automation is slowly killing more jobs
than it creates. I think low level knowledge worker 'paper-shuffling' jobs are
on the way out but where to from here? What's out role as coders as we disrupt
industry by industry?

~~~
svachalek
This article seems to argue that automation isn't killing jobs, it's just
killing jobs for a certain type of people, nudge nudge. It then proceeds to go
pretty much nowhere with the thought.

I can't figure out if this is some political propaganda piece or just thrown
together by someone who can't put together a coherent argument.

------
danieltillett
The problem of automation is it shifts the allocation of production from labor
to capital. Compounding this the owners of capital are not spending their
allocation on activities that employs low skilled human labour (e.g. if a
billionaire's income goes up 10 times over a decade then he does not employee
10x as many maids). The general trend is to push down the demand for low
skilled jobs and hence wages.

------
wyager
Automation doesn't "kill jobs" at all.

I'm tired of news articles that try to pass of "jobs" as some sort of
discrete, easily quantifiable units. "Over a million jobs are being shipped to
china", "12,000 jobs created", etc.

That's not how labor works. Or at least, it's a useless and misleading way of
thinking about labor.

Sometimes automation makes a certain type of labor irrelevant. Those laborers
need to find a new job (which possibly involves retooling) or starve (or,
today, live off some sort of welfare or charitable income).

We are not even close to simply having no labor left that needs doing by
humans. That's the only way you can really "kill" jobs; replace all human
labor altogether. Otherwise, humans will just move to whatever they're still
good at. Because of automation, the world will _always_ be able to support
those new jobs. The market will force this to be the case.

~~~
ThomPete
You are missing the point of the automation discussion.

The problem is that the jobs that are left for those without a tech degree of
some sort aren't appreciated by the market and is forcing salaries down way
below what is possible to live off. Wallmart is a much more accurate way to
look at what automation does.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_...forcing salaries down way below what is possible to live off._

This is an exaggeration. It may be forcing salaries below the level necessary
to support US middle class consumption levels, but there is a huge gap between
that and "possible to live off". Where I live, even the middle class don't
live in homes with 2 rooms/person or own a car (unlike poor people in the US).

A full time minimum wage job pays $14,500/year. GDP/capita (adjusted for
purchasing power) in Bulgaria is $14,100. In Brazil it's $11,700, here in
India it's $3800, and in Haiti it's $1200. Yet people continue to live.

(These numbers are adjusted for purchasing power, so don't argue that it's
cheaper to live over here.)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

~~~
ThomPete
Could you live on 14.500 a year? That 1400USD a month. If you have kids good
luck with that.

50 years ago GM was the biggest job creator in the country. Average hourly
wage was quite good to live off.

Today Wallmart is the biggest and many workers need extra help from the
goverment to even make it.

The problem is very real.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I live on well under $1400/month now. For a while I was living in a
400rs/night hostel and spending about 600-700rs/day. Billions of my fellow
human beings live on considerably less than that.

If you want to argue that wages are not high enough to sustain the moving
goalposts of US middle class life, do it. But do it honestly and acknowledge
that the main problem is that the definition of "middle class" (or whatever
term you want to use) has risen more rapidly than low skill wages.

Using phrases like "possible to live off" is simply a lie. If it were true
then I should be surrounded by over a billion dying people and I should be
dead myself.

Check your privilege, dude.

~~~
ThomPete
Oh please.

Billions of your fellow human beings do not live in New York or SF or in the
US for that matter. Comparing with other countries is so misinformed it's not
even worth taking serious.

If you want to play with rethorics be my guest. You very well know what I mean
and is just trying to dodge the real issue here.

Most people once they move out of their early twenties have obligations bigger
than themselves. Sure some people can choose to live for 1400/month but most
people can't and therefore the government is stepping in to help.

Maybe you don't have a problem with that. I do.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Billions of your fellow human beings do not live in New York or SF or in the
US for that matter_

If only I were smart enough to have thought of that. Then I might have cited
PPP-adjusted numbers rather than nominal ones. I'd have said this: "GDP/capita
(adjusted for purchasing power) in Bulgaria is $14,100...here in India it's
$3800"

If I were really smart, I might also have anticipated your dishonest response
and said this: "These numbers are adjusted for purchasing power, so don't
argue that it's cheaper to live over here."

[edit: It's amusing that in your response you bring up food. Fun fact: poor
people over here aren't fat. You really need to leave the US at some point in
your life. Canada and the UK don't count.]

~~~
ThomPete
Did you adjust by state? Did you look at what kind of food you can get when
you have what ever is left after rent etc for 1400 per month. So yeah if only
you where so smart to have done that then you might have a point. But you
didn't so you don't.

------
hownottowrite
The original conference paper upon which the NYT article is based:
[http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/projects/bpea/spring%202014...](http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/projects/bpea/spring%202014/2014a_krueger)

------
andkon
My beef with this piece: automation probably isn't the only thing killing
jobs, but it's the only thing that the author provides any evidence of having
a causal role in driving job losses. Everything else mentioned (e.g. the
financial crisis) is a sort of catalyst for labour market changes or a red
herring.

I mean, if a dude gets shot and dies, we tend not to argue too much about
whether it was the bullet that killed him, or the corresponding massive blood
loss.

------
MWil
Automation has never killed jobs, only dis[re]placed them.

~~~
bowlofpetunias
That is only true if you see jobs as statistics, not as activities carried out
by actual human beings.

~~~
MWil
designing, producing, selling, installing, operating, and maintaining
automation are activities carried out by actual human beings

~~~
ebiester
How many of those jobs can be done by a dull person? Consider someone smart
enough not to be classified as disabled, but not smart enough to do more than
semi-skilled labor under supervision.

They used to have factory jobs. These have been automated.

Agriculture is increasingly automated.

We are finding ways to build our systems around fewer and fewer people. More
capable people are fighting further down the food chain.

Do we just throw people who can't adapt on disability? That's what we did for
the group below them, after all. (Who themselves, mind you, we're once capable
of being functional members of society, even if they needed help and we're
often exploited.)

~~~
MWil
it doesn't automatically follow that "finding ways to build our systems around
fewer and fewer people" in a SPECIFIC area = a system for fewer and fewer
people. What if the journey to automation elevated job positions to something
far greater than if the job had remained off-limits to automation?

~~~
ThomPete
You are grabbing for straws now.

The whole point of technology is to increase production output. To do more
with less.

This might open up new areas but it doesn't follow at all either. And unless
you can point to something like the semiconductor revolution it's hard to see
what you are referring to.

~~~
MWil
I don't feel like I'm reaching at all. I feel like I'm describing a pretty
general truth.

Job A gets replaced by Automation 1.0. Automation 1.0 required the labor of
Jobs B, C, and D to become a reality. Now, not only can Jobs B, C, and D
become greatly automated but Automation A is going to eventually lead to
Automation 2.0 which led to Jobs E, F, and G being created. Within one
generation of the death of Job A, six other jobs were created.

You're arguing that specialization isn't opened up but someone specialized in
something enough (robotics, AI, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering,
something) to lead to the automation in the first place.

~~~
ThomPete
That's not a general truth at all. Thats the point. There is no data that
shows that new jobs are created to replace those lost by automation. So not
it's not a general truth at all.

~~~
MWil
How in the world did the automation become a reality without at least one new
job having come into creation? Replacement is at least guaranteed (not
obviously analogous by hours or skills required). The question is can we say
that more now jobs exist (although they might not need filling or lead to the
displaced workers finding new work).

~~~
ThomPete
Because at the same time new markets where liberalized. In fact it was a major
part of the US doctrine since second world war. To open up new markets for
American companies which they have done very successfully.

You could have jobs for everyone if you just gave them 50 cent an hour so no
that is not question as it's missing the point.

I find the continued apologetic nature of your and some others argument
amazing. Technology does not create more jobs than it destroys it help create
new markets.

But at the same time it removes jobs from the middle class and leaves only
either high tech jobs or Wallmart like jobs in the US (and europe)

If you think that is a sustainable model and proves that the market works just
fine I think you are mistaken.

------
z3t4
I think there is this big confusion about jobs and money. And that the
psychological view is overlooked.

We want to feel important. And we want freedom to do whatever we want to do.

While automation gives more freedom, it makes us feel less important? What we
can do with a washing machine, everyone else can do too. But the question is,
do they want to?

With more automation we will see more and more services. And even more
possibilities.

------
jcolemorr11
Did anyone actually think that automation was the only thing killing jobs? And
then you read it and find that the title has only a small portion to do with
the actual content.

Coming from an economist (a professor at least), I'd expect a little bit more
positive economic analysis and objectivity. This reads more like a sociology
commentary.

------
orasis
Boo! lame article.

