
The effect of today’s technology on tomorrow’s jobs - ig1
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21594298-effect-todays-technology-tomorrows-jobs-will-be-immenseand-no-country-ready?
======
klenwell
I found one of the simplest and most insidious examples of the effect of
today's technology on today's jobs in this New York Times article:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/business/a-part-time-
life-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/business/a-part-time-life-as-
hours-shrink-and-shift-for-american-workers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&)

It documents how scheduling software in the retail and food sectors has
allowed corporate chains to optimize the scheduling of low-wage workers,
scheduling them for shorter shifts concentrated at peaks hours and sending
them off when not needed.

This article doesn't go into great detail about another exploitative practice:
the split shift. This means a employee may be required to work a short morning
shift and a short evening shift, making it effectively impossible for those
prepared to scrape by working a second job to even do that any more.

The net effect is less wages and less benefits for workers. And to whom does
the difference accrue?

Technology here acts as a tool further disadvantaging those who are already at
a disadvantage. And technology itself doesn't offer an obvious remedy.
Collective action among workers might help their cause, but unions in this
country struggle to organize. Facebook and Snapchat don't appear to be picking
up the slack.

Government regulation would seem to offer a more civil remedy. Simply don't
allow employers to squeeze their employees like this. But while I continue to
hear occasional media stories and personal narratives about these abuses, I
haven't heard reports of any serious proposals to end them.

~~~
maerF0x0
The negatives of the split shift will drive up the per hour wages. To
illustrate: say I'll work all day for $64 but I have some bare minimum I need
to live on, maybe $60. If I cannot make $60 in the 2x 3hour shifts, then I
have to look elsewhere. As people look elsewhere, the price to fill the job
will rise. Furthermore, there are side benefits of split shifts, like being
able to do a workout midday, running errands or seeing your kids, having a
walk in the park etc. etc. These side benefits are the kinds of benefits that
come to all workers when we utilize skills more effectively. When all the
dishwashers were laid off due to dish washing machines, we rejoiced because
people dont have to do menial work anymore and can pursue the higher callings
of human life. Its scary, but beneficial to all.

>"And to whom does the difference accrue"

A portion of the difference will go to those who made the software, A portion
to the capitalists who invest in the software, A portion to the business owner
who implements the software etc. etc. A portion will be passed onto consumers
as price competition.Like the economist article says, it can take time for the
market effects to settle out though, maybe not now, maybe not in 5 years, but
eventually everyone will be doing it, saving us all 10 cents on a combo (or
whatever contrived number)..

~~~
ItendToDisagree
Have you ever had to work a split shift? Not just been assigned one, but been
in a situation where you had to take a menial job, and were _forced_ to work
this sort of shift, because if you didn't you'd be fired and likely unable to
eat/have a place to sleep?

I know it sounds pretty drastic but the split shift is primarily used against
(yes I say against) the lowest paid workers who need the wages the most. Its
not going to drive wages per hour up... Hell in most cases over the last
decade the prospect of raising the minimum wage is fought kicking and
screaming.

At the lowest levels of the wage scale there isn't really the competition you
would need to drive the wages up because no one is going to say "I deserve
more for doing this shitty job" at the risk of being unable to feed themselves
or their kids. Get real.

Edit: Not making a comment on technology here at all. Just the idea that split
shifts will somehow raise the wages for said shifts.

~~~
nickff
One could also argue that split shifts increase the value of irregular
(possibly part) time workers to their employers, thus increasing their working
hours, thus increasing their earnings potential. I have no evidence to support
this, but increasing the availability of any service usually increases
utilization of it.

~~~
ItendToDisagree
That might be true if they were two separate shifts... But they are not. Its
one shift at two different times.

What company is going to pay for all the hassle of having two employees to
cover the same shifts they can force one person to do? The hypothetical you
propose is not only imaginary, but worse value on the face for the employer,
and thus will not happen because it makes no sense from a business
perspective.

One could also argue that any number of things, from faith in a higher power,
to higher carbohydrate intake, could increase the value of an employee to
their employers but that doesn't make it in any way realistic.

~~~
nickff
> _" One could also argue that any number of things"_

It is not unreasonable of me to think that increased employee availability
will lead to increased number of hours worked. Whenever it becomes easier for
me to get something I want, I usually get more of it (e.g. Netflix); there is
no reason to believe labor is different.

~~~
ItendToDisagree
You continue to ignore that there is not 'increased employee availability', it
is in point of fact decreased. As the op stated:

 _This means a employee may be required to work a short morning shift and a
short evening shift, making it effectively impossible for those prepared to
scrape by working a second job to even do that any more._

And I have reiterated the point. The split shift is not two different shifts.
It is one shift at two different points in the day. Where does the increased
employee availability come from? The employee in question actually has less
availability for another employer (not to mention for themselves given
possible commute times, having to work morning & night when they might see
family who dont have such a schedule, etc).

Unless you're somehow meaning since they are willing to work more flexible
(read: Worse) schedules?

Also your Netflix example rings pretty hollow. They arn't even loosely
comparable situations. Any owner/manager who hires more people "because they
are available!" is probably 'doin it wrong'. You ideally hire, and pay, only
as many people as you need to get the job done.

But for the sake of argument: Imagine if you had to pay the upkeep for Netflix
twice per month (hiring two employees for the different parts of the one split
shift). Pay your monthly cost, then you go over a limit or want to watch on a
second device or whatever, so you then have to pay a second time. Would you be
watching things as freely? I'd wager that you wouldn't.

~~~
nickff
> _" Where does the increased employee availability come from?"_

Being able to structure the workday differently, such as a 7am-11am and
1pm-5pm split shift as opposed to a 9am-5pm shift may make the employee
available for more productive hours (depending on the employer and
requirements). This may make the difference between hiring and not hiring, or
between giving 4-6 hours in a single shift and 8 hours in a split.

> _" You ideally hire, and pay, only as many people as you need to get the job
> done."_

This is true, but increasing the number of scheduling options may have an
impact on how much work can get done (and the value proposition to the
employer); and I am addressing marginal cases.

> _" Imagine if you had to pay the upkeep for Netflix twice per month (hiring
> two employees for the different parts of the one split shift). Pay your
> monthly cost, then you go over a limit or want to watch on a second device
> or whatever, so you then have to pay a second time. Would you be watching
> things as freely? I'd wager that you wouldn't."_

I think that if Netflix offered me more opportunities to consume content, I
would be happy to pay for it.

My policy goal would be to make employees more productive, and increase the
demand for labor, so that employers will have to pay higher wages to attract
the workers, and the employers can afford to. This also has the impact of
making people's work more meaningful, as their labor must be better utilized,
instead of wasted on menial tasks.

~~~
ItendToDisagree
What you described is not increased employee availability. It is forcing an
employee to be available to the same employer for effectively 2 extra hours
without having to pay for those two hours (remember you're only paying them
for when it is best for you). They still have to commute to-from work which
eats at least an hour of their time unless they live literally around the
corner. Also this does not increase wages for the time or hours worked with
pay.

If you're addressing marginal cases you may not want to initially present it
as an absolute that should increase wages or hours worked because it obviously
will not in all but extreme fringe cases.

The Netflix example would not be them offering you more, you would simply be
paying twice, for the same thing you used to get (comparison being the need to
pay the upkeep for two different employees rather than the one you used to
use). Your response does not take that into account and it seems to ignore it
purposefully.

Your policy goal is lofty. But it has been shown over and over that employers
having the ability to pay more does not lead to higher wages for workers. That
is actually an idea that runs counter to the idea of profit. It would be nice
if that were the case but it simply is not true, and something you say you
have no evidence for in a previous post, while there is ample evidence to the
contrary.

~~~
maerF0x0
The worker isn't forced into anything. They can choose the job or not.
Further, they're available for other tasks in the 2 hour window. Write a book,
advance their careers, invent something. If they take the 2 hours and spend 30
minutes each way going home and 1 hour on Xbox, then they're going to lose out
because they didnt make use of the 2 hours.

BTW: I had split shifts before when I was a teenager, and I didnt like it. I
told my employer and they greatly limited the number of them we had. We also
had "Call" shifts, where you had to be ready to work, and call in an hour
ahead of time and see if you were working or not... Made it so you couldnt
book any hard plans for that whole shift, but 95% of the time you didnt work
it anyways. Overall it was a good job, traded my teen years for subway and
clothes (spent all my paychecks like any teen would :P )

------
furyg3
While it's a great idea to train people for the job skills that are on an
upward trend, I feel like the article is being fairly short sighted.

Automating away 50% of the workforce won't happen in a vacuum. It will come
with major changes to the political, economic, and social systems.

Maybe we decide to let tech do everything while we go fishing (the oft-cited
technology utopia that never seems to happen). Maybe we switch to a fixed-
income economic model, where it's fine if people decide not to work. Maybe we
decide _not_ to automate some components (gasp!). Or use all that extra
manpower to philosophize, make art... or war.

To say "it's going to be a big problem if 50% of the workforce is made
redundant, we better start educating people now!" is exactly what you would
expect from an (or 'the') economist. Economic rules are based on people's
desires, and people desires may also be revolutionized if most of what they do
is done by computers.

~~~
zanny
> Maybe we decide not to automate some components

Why in the world would you not do this? There will always be a market for
"hand crafted", but at a societal level we should never demand human time for
things we could have done without that time expense, given equivalent quality.

~~~
nsxwolf
Go to a casino. You can play a 100% automated roulette machine, or the real
thing at a table. Look which one has the most people around it. For at least
this one small example, people have already made the choice to prefer human
labor.

~~~
TeMPOraL
This is not human labor, this is _human fun_. We won't automate away thing we
actually _like_ to do.

~~~
VLM
Which brings up the exploitative effect where in the long run, no one will
have service sector jobs except cute young women in skimpy uniforms. Although
I find "cute young women in skimpy uniforms" visually highly appealing, I'm
not convinced that appealing to my base interests is a societal upgrade.

Also a human provider of "fun" isn't necessarily having any fun at all, even
if the consumers are.

~~~
JonnieCache
_> no one will have service sector jobs except cute young women in skimpy
uniforms._

The category list on your local pornographic website begs to differ. The
public have an infinite variety of tastes, the question is, do the markets
have the imagination to serve them?

EDIT: realised this doesn't really address your point, but it's still relevant
so I'll leave it here.

~~~
VLM
Yeah the other problem is any desire can be fulfilled on the internet, but in
meatspace look how rare gay bars are, and thats a pretty common variety of
taste. Oh they exist, but the ratio is all off.

Maybe I'll be really lucky once I'm ageism'd out of computers and I can become
a waiter. But even on the internet not too many people are into mostly naked
fat middle aged dudes, so figure the usual couple orders of magnitude off for
meatspace and the odds of millions of guys like me getting jobs seems rather
low.

Another problem is the public can have any tastes, but the 1% is mostly
elderly white dudes, and when they finally accumulate all the money instead of
merely most of it like now, they have fairly conventional stereotypical tastes
which ruins my chances of getting money from them.

------
001sky
Less important is the nature of work. More important is the nature of
contracting for that work.

> Search Costs

> Reach

> Transparency

These all equate to leverage, or options on leverage.

The key takeaway: you better be the one doing the leverage. If you are on the
wrong side (and you will be if you are not increasingly using technology to
increase your personal leverage), things are not likely to be stable,
predicatble, or really all that comfortable.

SW is going to "eat the world" by providing leverage in a pocket. It might
need a piece of HW and in IP connection, but the point is not the form of the
device; but what it embodies: the opportunity to leverage...time, space,
information, people. Not to mention data and the usefulness of data from the
perspective of rhetoric (ie, appearing informed...even if authority is not
explicitly yours...allows you to make claims...through the illusion/reality of
perceived expertise).

Anyways, these are fun times. Embrace the potential. Keep an eye on your back.
And you will do fine. Do the opposite...ignore the potential, fail to keep
your wits about you, and don't look over your shoulder...and other things will
happen.

Part of this is not being complacent; these powers will be used (potentially)
for evil as well as good. And like the historical example of the cold-
war...sometimes revolutionary prosperity is not actually all that fun to live
through. So we should all keep that in mind, too.

------
forgottenpaswrd
Always the same message, that is deeply flawed: That the problem today is
technology, it is not.

Reality is that today economy is central planned in order to protect the money
from the people at the top at the expense of the one of normal people, who had
seen taxes increase and life much more expensive as a result.

Don't get me wrong, I have friends that are rich, but the reality is that lots
of people at the top got money speculating on bad assets or bubbles.

When it was time for correction,(2008) the governments entered in order to
protect those speculators from losses, and bought those bad assets making
miserable the general economy.

The problem is not solved, protecting malinvestors only makes them more
confident to do it again.

~~~
TeMPOraL
There's a bigger problem with our economy - its two main pillars are scarcity
and growth. The first one is disappearing thanks to automation, and the second
one is unsustainable, as we're about to hit the roof. The economy _will_
change, it's only a question of whether we handle the transition gracefully,
or let the whole thing collapse on our heads.

~~~
xixi77
What are the signs of either scarcity, or growth, being in danger of soon (or
ever) going away? The asinine "infinite growth on a finite world has to be
impossible" meme is getting really tired; but even if we subscribed to that
notion for a second, what would constrain future growth if not scarcity? And
what would do away with scarcity if not growth?

------
nsxwolf
There seems to be a lot of automation anxiety on HN lately. If an article is
not about the NSA it's about how 100 million jobs are about to vanish into
thin air and we need a guaranteed income, the theory that people are freed up
to do other jobs is bunk because we've reached the end of the line, etc...

I wonder if we're really that close to the end of jobs, or if we are just
suffering from a lack of imagination.

~~~
doktrin
It's eminently possible, if not likely, that the way the future will
_actually_ unfold differs from our current predictions (on HN, or elsewhere).

However, you work with what you've got. If our best model for the future
involves the progressive automation of all human labour - it makes sense to at
least theorize (if not plan) for that eventuality.

If the situation turns out to not be dire - great - but you plan for the
worst, as the axiom goes.

------
jbb555
Well the alternative is "If only we all did our jobs less efficiently everyone
would be better off". Which is clearly stupid.

~~~
henrik_w
From the article: "Innovation has brought great benefits to humanity. Nobody
in their right mind would want to return to the world of handloom weavers. But
the benefits of technological progress are unevenly distributed, especially in
the early stages of each new wave, and it is up to governments to spread
them."

~~~
furyg3
> "Innovation has brought great benefits to humanity. Nobody in their right
> mind would want to return to the world of handloom weavers. "

Interestingly even this is the opposite of what we're seeing. It may be more
expensive (cost), worse (quality), and less efficient (time and materials)
but:

I like to brew my own beer instead of buying it. I like to build my own
cabinet instead of shopping at Ikea. I like to take a day off to raise my
child instead of sending them to daycare. To fix my car, make my own lamp,
walk the dog, etc.

I just went to an open air museum where perfectly right-minded people were
looming their own textiles (for free!). I recently met a regional queen in
Indonesia who wove her own, as well, because it was cultural, not because her
family needed the money.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Well, you do this for fun. For every person like you who likes to brew his/her
own beer, there are other people who just want to buy _a beer_ to have
something to drink while they're socializing with friends. The real benefit of
innovation is that you're _free to choose_ which things you care about enough
to do them by yourself, and have all the others mass-produced and cheaply
available.

~~~
VLM
I think you're in a circular loop. Once those "just wanna drink a beer" people
have their jobs automated away, they will never again have money to
participate in the economy again. At which point they will have to take up
barter or crime. They might trade home grown weed for someones home brewed
beer, but one thing I know is they won't be part of the monetary economy
buying a beer anymore.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Once those "just wanna drink a beer" people have their jobs automated away,
> they will never again have money to participate in the economy again._

This is the whole topic of this article. The economy is broken wrt. progress
and needs to be fixed. Two pillars of our economic system - scarcity and
endless growth - are both being destroyed as we speak.

~~~
VLM
I'd agree with your two and add two of my own:

1) The existence of the middle class

2) The general public gets to participate in commodity markets. Not the
trading commodity market, but the consumer markets. No more buying food,
medical care, housing, clothing, no longer participants in the system. The
monetary economy is for other people, the rich, not everyone or even the
majority.

~~~
xixi77
Middle class is going away for sure. It has always been a historical
abnormality anyway.

As for the latter -- people have been participating in monetary economy long
before industrial revolution, and will be participating whichever way the
society evolves -- it is just simply more convenient than barter. If someone
can produce beer himself cheaper than it is available on the market, why would
he not sell it and earn some money? And if he cannot make it cheaper, why
would he not buy it instead (or not drink it at all if he is too poor, or
steal money & buy beer, or...) -- the point is that whatever he does, making
it himself is never a good idea unless he enjoys it as a (somewhat expensive)
hobby.

------
pgeorgi
I wonder how articles like this always consider management to be safe from
automation. If there is something that can be done better by computers than
humans, it's unemotional number crunching (like risk assessment or other
decision making).

You still need to enter the right questions and numbers and then act on the
result, but I see quite some slack in that field that could be optimized away
once the right product shows up.

~~~
rm445
Interesting (and slightly terrifying) short story that was posted here a while
back, positing that computer vision and speech would make middle management
obsolete first. It makes for quite different consequences to the usual vision,
that the workers are in trouble but the managers are safe.

[http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

------
henrik_w
Previous submission:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7070945](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7070945)

------
yetanotherphd
For people like me who have trouble making it to the end of an article, I want
to repeat the solution that the authors propose:

>Yet however well people are taught, their abilities will remain unequal, and
in a world which is increasingly polarised economically, many will find their
job prospects dimmed and wages squeezed. The best way of helping them is not,
as many on the left seem to think, to push up minimum wages. Jacking up the
floor too far would accelerate the shift from human workers to computers.
Better to top up low wages with public money so that anyone who works has a
reasonable income, through a bold expansion of the tax credits that countries
such as America and Britain use.

For basic income advocates, I would also like to point out that this policy is
much closer to basic income than increasing the minimum wage.

~~~
wavefunction
It is, but then again why compromise? Actual basic income schemes proposed by
various economists are better than either propping up the minimum wage or
using "public money" to pay workers enough to live.

One single unitary basic income system from which all benefit to the same
degree, whether you are now poor, rich, lazy or driven should be our goal.

~~~
nickff
> _" One single unitary basic income system from which all benefit to the same
> degree, whether you are now poor, rich, lazy or driven should be our goal."_

I have to disagree, as my goal is simply for everyone's life to be constantly
(but not necessarily monotonically) improving. I am not too choosy about the
means by which this is achieved (excepting immoral means such as slavery).

> _" It is, but then again why compromise? Actual basic income schemes
> proposed by various economists are better than either propping up the
> minimum wage or using "public money" to pay workers enough to live."_

This is a great point, as one problem with the minimum wage (MW) is that it is
not a transparent policy, as no one knows its true costs. If a basic income or
other system were a line item on the governmental budget, the voters might
understand its (direct) costs, and weigh the benefits against those. Democracy
requires transparency, as citizens must be able to learn what their votes have
done, and will do.

Yet another problem of MWs is that their opaqueness makes it easy for firms
with low labor costs to lobby for increases in the MW to destroy their
competition; while high labor cost companies lobby to keep the MW constant,
and increase the money supply (to deflate the MW).

------
VLM
"The millions freed from the land were not consigned to joblessness, but found
better-paid work as the economy grew more sophisticated."

No explanation why this is anything other than a very convenient coincidence,
which is too bad. I'm not convinced its other than a coincidence. I would feel
better if there was some kind of reasoning behind it. Anything.

You may as well argue that drinking large amounts of tea was followed by an
industrial revolution in .uk therefore the best economic plan for Africa would
be to airdrop bags of tea, if it worked before, what could possibly go wrong
tomorrow?

~~~
marcosdumay
It's worse when you realise that the millions freed from the land mostly had
to choose between working insane hours (often dying from stress alone), or
dying of cold or starvation.

Better paying jobs only started to appear a generation later, and only become
really common at the XX century.

------
r0h1n
The Economist, imho, has never been a great place to read about Internet
trends (they do a great job with cutting-edge tech, esp. from a science or R&D
point of view). But their current special report is a rare exception.

Ludwig Siegele, the anchor (Economist writers are allowed bylines for special
reports) has covered quite a bit of ground. Some of the stuff may be familiar
to HN readers, but I can almost guarantee it will be very useful and revealing
to most other (non-tech) readers. Which is why I'll take the risk of posting
links to all the stories in the report:

The 'Cambrian Explosion' in web entrepreneurship -
[http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593580-cheap-...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593580-cheap-and-ubiquitous-building-blocks-digital-products-and-
services-have-caused)

Lean methodology - [http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593580-cheap-...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593580-cheap-and-ubiquitous-building-blocks-digital-products-and-
services-have-caused)

How venture capital is adapting - [http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593585-ventur...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593585-venture-capital-adapting-itself-new-startup-landscape-leafy-
lofty)

The role of accelerators, including YC -
[http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593592-bigges...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593592-biggest-professional-training-system-you-have-never-heard-
getting-up-speed)

Rocket Internet's approach towards farming startups -
[http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21593586-how-
bu...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21593586-how-build-
companies-kit-rocket-machine)

Global startup ecosystems - [http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593582-what-e...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593582-what-entrepreneurial-ecosystems-need-flourish-all-together-
now)

The 'dark side' of starting up - [http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593591-are-st...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593591-are-startups-just-workaholic-white-male-lumpen-preneurs-
founders-blues)

Hardware startups and Shenzhen - [http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593590-why-so...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593590-why-southern-china-best-place-world-hardware-innovator-be-
hacking)

The growth of platforms - [http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593583-prolif...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21593583-proliferating-digital-platforms-will-be-heart-tomorrows-
economy-and-even)

~~~
drcode
I still give the Economist huge credit for releasing this cover image in 2005:
[http://www.tradersnarrative.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/03/a...](http://www.tradersnarrative.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/03/after%20the%20fall%20house%20prices%20economist%20magazine%202005.png)

That was arguably the most unambiguous and accurate prediction on the cover of
a magazine, ever.

I remember the lady next to me on an airplane telling me she was just getting
heavily into a house flipping business. I happened to have that issue of the
Economist with me to read on the plane. I showed her the cover and said "But
what about this?"

(I wonder what happened to her business...)

~~~
nkoren
That cover story is what caused me to pivot my career away from architecture,
as it was clear that architects would be absolutely hammered by the inevitable
crash. (And they were; architecture as a whole suffered more job losses than
any other industry). By the time the crash was bottoming out, I had a brand-
new degree and job in the driverless vehicle industry.

So, yes, it pays to read The Economist closely.

~~~
OoTLink
I'll soon have a degree in Computer Engineering. You guys hiring? :)

~~~
nkoren
Talking to investors at the moment. Then hopefully hiring!

------
cliveowen
The Economist has been publishing basically the same article for the last 8
months, what the hell is going on?

------
yawz
_rolls eyes_ They have to put "Big Data" in there, don't they? _sigh_

------
esja
A decent article, but as usual treats "capital mobility" as a law of nature.
If present trends continue, capital controls will be making a comeback.

