Please consider 60% of District’s Jobs Could Face Automation in the Next 20 Years.
> Advances in technology are almost always considered positive because they increase productivity and ease frustration of completing simple, menial tasks. However, technological improvement does not come without cost; some tech advancements can result in the automation of jobs that used to be performed by humans.
> Currently, automation is occurring more in service and manufacturing positions. It is one factor that contributes to labor market polarization, or the disappearance of middle-income, routine task type jobs in the U.S. Despite a strong labor market, fear of job loss from automation is common. Some parents with young children already worry that robots will take all potential jobs for their children in the near future.
> The short-term impact of automation is not directly observable, but two economists at the University of Oxford, Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, attempted to quantify jobs that are at risk in a 2013 article about automation. The researchers used a machine-learning algorithm to estimate the probability that an occupation will become automated in the next few decades. The probability is calculated based on three major factors of the occupation: perception and manipulation, creative intelligence, and social intelligence. The result can be interpreted as the likelihood that engineers will be able to produce machinery that performs tasks required in each occupation.
> The economists found that 47 percent of jobs in the U.S. are at risk of becoming automated. Jobs that are repetitive or routine-intensive have the highest probability of this happening. The economists predicted that the transportation and logistics occupations, as well as the office and administrative support occupations, will lose the most jobs to automation over the next decade or so.
> The Oxford economists predicted that automation will occur in waves, first replacing routine tasks, then slowing as engineers reach a technological plateau. A good example, provided by Frey and Osborne, is that paralegals and legal assistants (which are considered relatively low-skill, routine-based occupations) are seeing their jobs quickly becoming automated; however, it will be a long time before computers are advanced enough to replace lawyers (whose jobs are considered high-skill, nonroutine).
Select Cities
- 65% in Hot Springs AK
- 61% in Fort Knox KY, Springfield MO, Louisville KY, Memphis TN
- 60% in Evansville IN
- 58% in St Louis MO
- 56% in Little Rock AK
Little rock was the best performer. The national average was 47%.
Probability of Automation
Spotlight Transportation
Transportation is the fourth of 21 most likely occupations to be automated in the study. It’s also the fourth largest employer in the study.
How Many US Transportation Jobs at Risk?
The American Trucking Association has employment estimates.
- 7.4 million people employed throughout the economy in jobs that relate to trucking activity in 2015, excluding the self-employed.
- 3.5 million truck drivers employed in 2016 (almost unchanged from 2015).
Taxi Drivers and Chauffeurs
The BLS says there are 362,000 taxi drivers and chauffeurs. But there are huge problem with that number.
That estimate is for full-time drivers only, and it does not count self-employed. Thus, it does not count Uber and Lyft jobs.
Uber and Lyft Jobs
Ridester addresses the question: How Many Uber Drivers are There?
We do not have an answer because Uber is private. But Uber’s CEO offered hints at which Ridester concludes about 2 million globally, half of those in the US.
Call it 1,000,000. That seems reasonable enough, and it does not count Lyft.
So, factor in Uber, Lyft, taxis and limo services and you are talking about a huge number of jobs that will eventually be 80% automated.
Timeframe?
Long-haul trucking jobs will vanish first. Within a couple of years of Department of Transportation approval of driverless interstate driving, I expect those jobs will nearly vanish.
Airport taxi and limo drivers will vanish next (or simultaneously).
I am looking at a 2022-2024 timeframe for both, at the latest, but trucking first, perhaps by a couple of years.
The pending disruption is massive.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The interesting thing about that projection is that it is based on current knowledge.
Knowledge seems to be increasing exponentially. A few years back IBM said it figured out how to compute down to the molecular level. We now have bipedal robots that can do back flips. I have never done a back flip.
Who knows what breakthroughs are just a few years down the road? The Fed’s 60% number may be on the low side of what will happen in 20 years.
Bringing in immigrants to do “jobs americans won’t do” is completely insane since the coming automation will create a huge demand for all kinds of jobs soon because the amount of jobs will be much lower after automation and robotization take away lots of jobs now done by humans.
Furthermore the whole idea of “jobs americans won’t do” is completely FAKE because the issue with some jobs is the low wages being paid for them so the right way to find workers for those jobs would be to let free market work where employers increase wages being paid for those jobs until they find workers from americans.
Instead what has happened is that wages have been even further lowered by illegal immigrants in jobs like cleaning, meat processing, construction etc.
Specifically in construction people putting up drywall used to be paid 25-30 dollars in the 1990’s and workers were americans, now people putting up drywall are being paid 10-15 dollars an hour and most of workers are illegals.
Same thing with landscaping and gardening.
The policy of allowing illegal immigration since the 1990’s and allowing companies to hire illegals in huge numbers without any penalties has led to this whole immigration nightmare.
Right policy would be to slap EVERY company employing illegals 1 million dollar fine per illegal that is employed and this would lead to companies not hiring illegals or those companies hiring illegals being bankrupted and beng bought by owners who would not hire illegals.
Not sure if you’re old enough to remember the 1980s, but the appropriate response to your post is “Well, duh!”. Yeah, what you wrote is pretty obvious stuff and going after employers would be by far the most effective way to curb these practices, which is of course why it doesn’t happen.
There’s a bizarre, childlike innocence to your posts that makes me wonder how you managed to live a life where you never encountered corruption on any level. It’s fascinating!
Having cheap labor allows businesses to exist that otherwise would not. People used to clean their own houses, cook their own food, mow their own grass, etc, etc, to a much greater extent than they do today. This allows Americans to own these types of businesses and make money off the labor of others. If you have to pay someone $50/hour to work in a slaughterhouse or pick the vegetables then you will not survive. All of our meat and vegetables would be imported the same way all of our clothes and electronics are now. Our vegetables and fruit will be picked by Mexicans, it’s only a matter if they do it here or in Mexico.
The other day my office mates (engineers) were talking about self driving cars. One pointed out that ultimately facial recognition software will be added to the security camera. The next link would be for the car to match the face with one wanted by the police, and drive the passenger to the police station. It sounds great to be able to apprehend a bad guy; however, incorrect matches will cost innocent people jobs who miss their interviews, cause sick people to miss their doctor’s appointment, and ruin people’s reputations. Even MISH is at risk since he has an unpaid judgement in France. So MISH do you REALLY want to risk your freedom to save a few dollars?
What does their study conclude next week’s Powerball winning number will be? And the one one 20 years from now?
Their study will conclude that they will continue to be handsomely paid (with money they print from thin air) to publish useless studies to perpetuate the myth that they are “closely monitoring the economy” and acting on behalf of the country.
If true, should we not be considering controling and possibly reducing immigration at this conjunction.? The social repercussions will be very significant.
All low wage immigration should be STOPPED.
Illegal immigration should be STOPPED and current illegals deported back home.
Mass immigration of H1B’s that are used by companies to lower their wages and therefore increase their profits should be STOPPED.
There should be a minimum wage of 250,000 dollars per H1B workers to make sure they are brought for their skills instead of them being brought to lower wages like happens now.
So how good an idea is it bringing in millions of legal and illegal low skill immigrants per year?
That depends. If the goal is to have a functional economy, it’s a terrible idea. However, if the goal is to manufacture conflict while looting heavily from the top, it could be genius.
Guys, there are a record number of job openings in the United States:
The U.S. has a labor shortage and allowing immigration is imperative for economic growth. You can’t take the automation of one industry, or even several industries, and confirm your anti-immigration biases.
US has NO labor shortage because the US employment ratio for working age people is just 60.5% in July of 2018 (St. Louis Fed).
Most European countries have this ratio at over 70% and some have it over 75% so there is absolutely NO need for illegal immigrants or low wage legal immigrants in the USA and there is NO need for H1B indian programmers or stem workers either.
If there would genuine need for workers this would cause wages to rise quickly and so far this has NOT happened.
In an environment where markets are allowed to work the wages rise in those jobs which need workers until those workers are found. The problem in USA is that markets have not been allowed to work because US government policy has allowed millions of illegals to come to USA and has allowed companies to hire those millions of illegals with practically no enforcement of laws and no penalties so wages have been kept low and even lowered further in many cases and employers have been allowed to LIE through their teeth with lies like “jobs americans just won’t do” etc.
How does that compare to the previous 20,40,60 years? Seems like a lot of jobs are constantly being automated away.
Not at this level.
It’s the big question of our era- what to do with all these unwanted/unneeded people? Even China is automating rapidly and cannot justify paying their low factory wages.
UBI is unworkable and the transition to an automated economy will be rapid. Combine this with monetary policy designed to benefit the top fraction of a percent and it’s an incendiary situation. Gonna be interesting times!
How long before we see a NYT headline: Automation: Women Hardest Hit ?
Sounds like there are going to be a lot of jobs building and maintaining automated equipment. Those driverless trucks and Ubers will still need mechanics. But when “lady jobs” like office & administrative support go away, there are a lot of female college graduates with unpaid student debt who are going to wish they had an actual skill, like basket-weaving.
If we could kill Political Correctness, the growth of automation could be a great step forward for humanity, allowing the female half of the workforce to return to their highest & best (nay, essential) use, which is bringing up the next generation as civilized productive individuals. But how this all plays out in parallel with the inevitable failure of governments to pay back their debts or honor their unfunded pension & healthcare liabilities, I cannot even begin to guess.
I wouldn’t risk my life over saving an extra $2-3 bucks by riding in an automated car. Pretty sure I’m not alone so taxis and manned Ubers aren’t going to be vanishing any time soon.
Your predictions for when all manned trucking automates remind me of Al Gore’s predictions for global warming: always breathless, always wrong, and bulletproof to the logic derived from real world experiences.