
‘Routine’ Jobs Are Disappearing - prostoalex
http://www.wsj.com/articles/routine-jobs-are-disappearing-1483455600?mod=e2fb
======
Ensorceled
There are a fair number of comments dismissing this issue with a "retrain or
get left behind" and expressing not a lot of sympathy for those who don't.

Remember, the average IQ in the US is just below 100[1]. Exactly what kind of
jobs do you expect to retrain these people for? And how are they equipped to
pull themselves up by their own bootstraps?

Most of these jobs provided on the job training or apprenticeships so it's not
even a matter of "they did it once they can do it again".

Also, many are battling obesity and related illnesses such as diabetes or
struggling with mental illness and/or addiction.

We need a systemic overhaul of the economic system and soon. Self driving
vehicles will put 3-5 million out of work in the next decade.

[1] [https://iq-research.info/en/page/average-iq-by-country#](https://iq-
research.info/en/page/average-iq-by-country#)

~~~
karmacondon
If the two options are retraining vs an overhaul of the economic system, I
think retraining is much more likely.

No one wants to change careers. I certainly don't. But the economic realities
are what they are. It would be nice to change the economy with basic income or
government work programs, both of which I'm in favor of. I just don't see how
that will realistically happen in the next 10-15 years.

So we need to make retraining great again. Invest time and money into making
the process easy, affordable and open to as many people as possible. Maybe we
need more schools, or organized apprenticeship programs or maybe teaching
robots. This is a problem that has to be solved with innovations in business
and/or technology. At least until we can gain the political position to make
major changes to our financial and economic ways of life.

~~~
DashRattlesnake
How to do you "retrain" to get abstract "skills in areas like critical
thinking and problem-solving"? When I think "retraining" I think training to
perform a different kind of routine job in a different domain or industry. For
example, decades ago, the NYT retrained its Linotype operators to a similar
computer data entry job[1].

[1] [https://vimeo.com/127605643](https://vimeo.com/127605643) or
[https://archive.org/details/FarewellEtaoinShrdlu](https://archive.org/details/FarewellEtaoinShrdlu)
or
[https://www.nytimes.com/video/insider/100000004687429/farewe...](https://www.nytimes.com/video/insider/100000004687429/farewell-
etaoin-shrdlu.html)

------
CodeSheikh
"To counter these trends, the U.S. must invest in raising the skills of the
workers most likely to be affected by the disappearance of routine jobs..."
Not sure how's that going to play out for example a welding machine operator
can't become a mechanical engineer in a short span of time because those
routine jobs are eventually going to be consumed by automated robots, per this
study. Why not motivate people to look into alternative booming industries?
Healthcare and therapists for example. With aging population, people would
require more health therapists and similar service oriented jobs.

~~~
metaphorm
elder-care cannot possibly be a solid basis for the economy. they are not in
their working years and are not (on the average) contributing positive sums to
GDP or tax revenue.

there is a humanitarian case to be made for improved quality of life for
elderly people, but I can't imagine that there is a reasonable economic case
to be made for it, unless you're arguing that the elder-care industry is just
an elaborate substitution for more traditional methods (inheritance and
taxation) of redistributing the accumulated wealth of the elderly. aside from
that, it strikes me as spiritually corrosive to set up a society in which the
young are caring for the old simply so they can pay their rent. this is a kind
of gerontocracy.

It seems to me that what is needed is alternative industries that are booming
because they create new economic opportunities in a generative fashion. an
industry that is booming because the core economic and social dynamics of our
society have gotten out-of-whack is not really much of a solid future for
people facing job displacement.

~~~
VLM
Consider even more traditional methods of elder care such as apprenticeships
and village elders.

It is rather mysterious how we take kids in prime physical shape and mush for
brains and lock them into ignorant echo chambers for years while we take wise
and skilled old people with worn out bodies and brains full of very expensive
experience and lock them into lonely old folks homes next door and then make
sure they never mix. Its almost like our culture is so stupidly designed
someone is trying to sabotage it.

You'd have to expand the concept of apprenticeship beyond current restrictive
beliefs and expand the idea of teachers aide quite a bit. If all some old
duffer does is make sure the kids don't tip over an unchained acetylene bottle
in shop class, its still worth it if all he does is sip coffee the rest of the
semester. Three old duffers stand at the table saw all day doing nothing but
safety and technique critique.

Advanced disciplinary procedures are interesting to contemplate. Not so much
the return of corporal punishment but you'd be surprised how well kids wanting
attention can react to being assigned to work with a team of five old people.
You will do your math homework alone or with the five grandmas ...

Note that this is a fair trade unlike your gerontocracy because the kids
derive considerable value from the old people.

Where it gets weird is when you mix unemployed people in. Say due to ageism
I'll never get paid to write code again because I'd be too expensive or
unwilling to work 60 hour weeks. If welfare paid my bills would it be that bad
if I did nothing but volunteer computer lab tech all day?

~~~
tptacek
I don't understand how we continue to dignify the premise that elder care in
our existing marketplace isn't a fair trade. We want our elderly family
members to be comfortable. If nobody was available to perform these services,
we'd do them ourselves, at great personal cost. Instead, we exchange money for
the services of specialists. Everybody comes out ahead.

We don't need "the kids to derive considerable value from the old people" to
justify these economic transactions.

------
jcbeard
Same basic trend we saw with industrial revolution. People lost their somewhat
skilled (for the time) jobs to steam powered machines. As the recent election
also put front and center, we're also competing with the entire planet for
jobs. How do we compete with the Terminator and the foreigner bogeyman? You
don't directly. Nations build a social safety net that cushions the churn of
jobs, universal healthcare so that the stress of loosing your job and
healthcare doesn't kill productivity, cheaper (or free) access to entry level
college education (community college), and lastly nations need to provide
geographic mobility (getting from the place without jobs to one with jobs
isn't easy when your bank account balance is -$40 USD). The net effect of all
these suggestions would likely be a good bump in long term national GDP and
growth...we could likely implement most of them using less than 1/4 of our
$600 billion yearly defense budget.

~~~
WhoBeI
Been thinking the same thing of late. There are many similarities. Lets hope
it doesn't last as long though.

------
JohnTHaller
Welding machine operators are a drop in the bucket compared with the biggest
looming job shift on the horizon: truck drivers. It's the most commonly listed
job in 29 states and there are millions of them across the US. And most will
be replaced by automated driving systems within the next couple decades. Yes,
there will be service jobs within trucking, but that will be a small fraction
of the 'routine' jobs that automation will replace.

~~~
the8472
> truck drivers. It's the most commonly listed job in 29 states

This has been brought up previously in HN discussions. It's an artifact of
arbitrary binning choices.

~~~
JohnTHaller
Regardless, there are still around 3 million of them. That's not a small
number.

------
lgleason
"The paper, called “Disappearing Routine Jobs,” provides more evidence that
the transformation of work in the U.S.—from an industrial economy to a digital
one where routine work is automated or outsourced and the remaining jobs are
concentrated in low-paid service work or high-skilled knowledge work"

Note the "or outsourced" piece. If the prevailing wage in the US is $20+ an
hour vs a 3rd or quarter of that in the developing world there is no way the
average US worker can compete. While I get the automation argument, that still
doesn't explain the large (seemingly majority) of retail goods in the United
States are that manufactured in lower labor cost countries. Not everyone is
cut out to be a knowledge worker. As much as I personally like tech, this is
not going to be the great job creator for Middle America.

There are still a lot of jobs that can't be automated and/or won't be for a
long time. If it was possible to automate as much as some would have you
believe in the short term straight up there are some robotics companies that
would have not closed down (Willow Garage), and you would be seeing a lot more
traction with others doing more interesting things instead of telepresence
robots and clunky household devices such as the Roomba.

------
nerdponx
Hasn't this been a recognized trend since the "jobless recovery" of 2009?

~~~
tptacek
The actual research finds that this is a phenomenon associated with _every_
jobless recovery (there have been 3 in the last 40 years or so): _each time_
there's a recession that ends without restoring pre-recession jobs, the
routine manual job market appears to take a permanent hit.

Here's the chart from an earlier paper by the same authors:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/782zelpi8r2nwua/Screenshot%202017-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/782zelpi8r2nwua/Screenshot%202017-01-03%2011.51.07.png?dl=0)

So a big question here is about causality. It's possible (maybe probable) that
the phenomenon of long term declines in routine manual jobs _is in fact the
cause_ of jobless recoveries: it creates a ratcheting effect at each
recession.

~~~
nerdponx
Thanks for the paper.

My understanding has been that it was due to stickiness in both wages and
labor demand. That is, a recession is an excuse to cut
wages/benefits/hours/headcount that managers either didn't care to cut or were
afraid to cut in good times.

That, or it spurs managers to actually innovate and figure out how to do more
with less.

If that understanding is even partially correct, it's ironic that labor laws
designed to protect employees might actually be contributing to over-
corrections in the labor market that directly hurt employees.

------
breadtk
Mirror: [https://archive.is/Tltad](https://archive.is/Tltad)

------
samfisher83
Welding is not a routine job. Good welders make pretty good money.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Routine doesn't necessarily mean low skill or low pay, it just means that you
do pretty much the same thing from day to day. There are probably surgeons out
there who have fairly routine jobs, make half a million dollars a year doing
it, and earn every penny.

~~~
ghaff
I'd add that there are a fair number of jobs that are pretty routine--until
they're not. (At least today, pilots are a good example.)

------
kwhitefoot
Lots of talk about retraining in these comments. All the retraining in the
world isn't going to help in a society where the work is not actually needed
to produce the goods we consume.

We need to stop valuing people by what they do and start providing for people
regardless of what they do. And you can do this secure in the knowledge that
you do it out of pure self interest because if you don't an underclass will
come into being on a scale not seen since feudal time and the people in it
will have little to lose by being disruptive and violently rebellious.

------
lordCarbonFiber
This is, for society at the very least, a "good thing". Who's dream is it to
perform a "relatively narrow set of repeated tasks" for 8 hours a day? As
mentioned, take these "prime aged workers" teach them skills, and suddenly we
have a spike in actually valuable labour instead of a middle class of
unfulfilled office drones stuck in a stupor. IMO, the framing should be look
at this amazing business opportunity to onboard high value workers, not
cautionary doom.

~~~
crispyambulance
That would be certainly be a nice thing. But I think the BIG problem here is
the part where you "teach them skills". What skills? who will teach these
skills? and most importantly who will pay to teach these skills?

~~~
monk_e_boy
And what skills? Machine operator just got automated, whats next? Taxi
drivers, truck drivers... what should they get an education in?

------
gregdsouzaa
Today I tweeted about a video of Raghuram Rajan (ex-RBI governor, ex-IMF
Economist)who explains this phenomenon succinctly.

[https://twitter.com/gregdsouza/status/816239880032305152](https://twitter.com/gregdsouza/status/816239880032305152)

------
retbull
It is interesting that the people who are losing jobs aren't retraining. What
exactly is Trump/Republican party going to do to help with that? Bring back
Coal when renewable is cheaper?

~~~
jerkstate
When will renewable be cheaper, though?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Already is:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/world-
ene...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/world-energy-hits-
a-turning-point-solar-that-s-cheaper-than-wind)

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-03/for-
cheap...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-03/for-cheapest-
power-on-earth-look-skyward-as-coal-falls-to-solar)

~~~
syshum
That is not a complete Electrical system, just the panels which are only
cheaper in area's with ideal solar output. Go north where there is less sun,
and more clouds and the cost starts to rise fast, further Electrical Storage
is a major concern since solar only works at most 12 hours a day, you have to
something about the other 12.

So no Solar is not cheaper when looked at in total cost to supply useable
power to people 24/7

Further the cost of Coal is higher today largely because of artificial fees
places on it in the form of Carbon Taxes, EPA regulations, etc. While I agree
many of these are needed and benifitial to the long term it is this has to be
factored in to the statement that Solar is "cheaper"

if the government adds all kinds of fees to everything but solar of course
solar will be cheaper, but that is an Artificial Result created by government
intervention in the market place not technology. The draw back of this is that
increases the price of power for everyone and that hits poor people the
hardest when their power bills double because of some new EPA Regulations

~~~
ergothus
> Further the cost of Coal is higher today largely because of artificial fees
> places on it in the form of Carbon Taxes, EPA regulations, etc. While I
> agree many of these are needed and benifitial to the long term it is this
> has to be factored in to the statement that Solar is "cheaper"

Depends. Fees that exist to influence direction of growth for opinionated
reasons definitely represent a bias, but to NOT price in the shared impact
(i.e. environmental impact, use of a globally limited resource (coal), etc)
represents a bias in the opposite direction. I'm willing to bet (purely
personal opinion) that fossil fuel costs do NOT fully include those common
costs, and thus more than wipe out any bias represented in other fees.

I perfectly acknowledge that using "renewable" resources all have shared costs
as well, and likely involve some sort of non-renewable impact. I'm just saying
you need to include those costs to have an even remote chance of a fair
comparison.

------
tarunm
So the normal 'human' link is paywalled but access through Google news is
complete. Why is this unfair practice not penalized by Google?

~~~
danso
Why would it be penalized by Google? One of the factors in the SERP algorithm
is how accessible a page is when someone clicks-through from Google, including
load times, page-covering ads, and so forth.

Google also punishes pages that show one thing to the crawler and another
thing to human visitors who click through on the search results, i.e.
"cloaking" [0]. That is not the case here.

edit: Maybe your question is actually: why does HN -- and all other non-Google
sites who link to WSJ articles -- continue to link to WSJ articles when it
provides a bad experience for the user? HN admins have made their position
clear that the content of WSJ articles are worth going through the workaround.

[0] [https://www.searchenginejournal.com/17-ways-to-get-de-
indexe...](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/17-ways-to-get-de-
indexed/53537/)

~~~
tarunm
Well I did some clicking around and came to know that this falls under their
First Click Free [0] option. The details sounds more unfair to me. Example -

'A user coming from a host matching [ _www.google._ ] or [ _news.google._ ]
must be able to see a minimum of 3 articles per day.'

Isn't this a net neutrality violation? Because of their monopoly, they are
able to force a work around to get access to content and a better UX for their
visitors at the cost of other referrers. A more fair/neutral program could be
a 'limited subscription' type access where the content site allows a limited
number of articles to users (from any referrer), Google gets access to content
for indexing and tags the content appropriately as 'limited access'.

[0]
[https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/40543](https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/40543)

~~~
danso
Net neutrality applies to services like broadband, which are argued to be
common carriers. If Comcast is the only Internet provider in my area, I have
no easy alternatives if Comcast decides to block all Time Warner affiliated
content. Just like it's not trivial to deal with PG&E arbitrarily shutting off
my gas and electric.

This isn't the case with search engines. If Google were to blacklist wsj.com,
I have many easy options to get to wsj.com. Which is why Google and any search
engine has wide latitude to heavily discriminate against content. That's
literally the point of PageRank, or any ranking algorithm. Where they have
gotten in trouble is when they're accused of promoting Google-made content
above other content (especially when the Google content consist of scraped
info from other sites).

