The Economist: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?
economist.comMuch of the article seems to hinge on the dollar's decline in value, this may be down to Mr Trump being president.
Similarly with the UK's decline in the value of the pound after Brexit making it superficially more competitive.
Dare I say it, devaluation is overvalued.
Hard paywall.
Was not able to read the full article in full, but title is an interesting question.
High wages in blue collar fields will be a thing of the past in an world where automation will thrust massive amounts of people whose jobs were automated onto the unemployment line. These people will have to make a choice :Either get re-educated or do simple blue collar jobs.
The good thing is the price per hour for plumbing and other Blue Collar jobs will be a lot cheaper than it is now because of an increase in Labor Supply.
Again I could be totally wrong, but as of today that is the direction we're headed.
The guy who puts the toothpaste cap on the tube will come back to repair the robots that replace him. If you think automation won't create new types of blue collar work then you're only looking at a narrow strip of the problem. Consider the ice delivery man: refrigeration destroyed his industry, but created so many more possibilities that there was a net gain in blue collar work. If you think we're on the precipice of AI/automation being able to solve complex problems without human aid I think you're overestimating the capacity of the capabilities of current generation tech. More specifically the blue collar work will be replaced by the blue collar work of tomorrow, it will be different, but it will still need humans at some level of the chain. Additionally there will be steep switching costs; I don't automation is going to replace ALL needs of current blue collar work as quickly as you think.
TL;DR Automation will...
* replace some current blue collar work over time
* create new blue collar work over time
* take a protracted period of time to fully supplant all labor needs
> Consider the ice delivery man: refrigeration destroyed his industry, but created so many more possibilities that there was a net gain in blue collar work.
these sorts of events aren't directly comparable to what approaches. future automation includes analysis, decision-making and adaptability such that most if not all conceivable 'new work' will be automated and a human labor market will not form.
essentially, the robots will build, design and maintain themselves.
> If you think we're on the precipice of AI/automation being able to solve complex problems without human aid I think you're overestimating the capacity of the capabilities of current generation tech.
i don't think anyone supposes it'll happen tomorrow, but it's something we should be well prepared for rather than reacting to.
>essentially, the robots will build, design and maintain themselves.
A new type of lifeform taking over earth is no longer an economic problem. It's an existential concern for the entire human race.
How many seamstresses do you need to create 100 t-shirts per hour?
How many techs do you need to repair one seamstress bot that pumps out 100 t-shirts per hour?
Automation reduces costs. Competition reduces prices. Consumers spend less money on the same type of good. Consumers can now save money or spend it on other goods.
Imagine universal automation exists: .e.g a machine can improve the productivity of every human by 10x. There are two possible outcomes: Humans work 10 times less for the same standard of living or humans work the same amount of hours for 10 times the standard of living.
In theory it's actually not possible to choose the first scenario because it's guaranteed someone will choose the second option to get priority access to a rivalrous exclusionary good (like land) which often has no soft price ceiling because it's not possible to produce more of it. People who can only find part time work during the transition to a new industry still have the same standard of living as before automation but they might no longer be able to afford the non automated expenses like housing.
The primary problems that should be addressed are basic costs of living. Extreme example: If it only costs 10% of a median fulltime salary to stay alive then it doesn't matter if you're poor or not. You can still afford it.
Yeah, automation will reduce jobs in the space that it's automating. It would be pretty absurd if it didn't reduce the number of jobs for that situation. The thing is that automation in one space increases jobs across the economy. A good example of this is how the vast majority of people used to be employed farming but as it has gotten more efficient the economy has created jobs in other sectors. Short term destruction of jobs is obviously an issue while the economy adjusts but long term the main concern would be that the economy stops having the ability to create new jobs at all. That long term catastrophe hasn't happened yet when we were in similar situations in the past so my guess would be that it won't happen this time but I'm not sure.
How many bots can do plumbing, carpentry, or electrical work? Zero.
If we ever get to that point, we’ll just start churning out bots and giving them away for free to do the work.
How many plumbers, carpenters and electricians do we need?
The information by then will be so common, that it will be a question of not how to fix, but whether or not it is convenient/one is willing to fix
Enough that they can command fairly substantial wages. People are always going to need residential, commercial, and industrial space.
Automation is a net benefit for the economy but it temporarily impacts the lifes of the workers it displaces. The problem is how to transition these workers to a different industry.