The Job Loss Tentacles Of Technology

Most are underestimating the impact of technology on job loss. This is a topic that is well discussed with people on both sides actively debating the subject. However, even thought who are on the side of technological unemployment appear to miss a large chunk of what is taking place.

The reality is that few truly expand their vision to see how long the tentacles of technology truly is. Most focus upon the near impact zone, omitting to see the expansiveness of what takes place.

For example, many could guess how video conferencing would impact how workers interacted with each other. Yet, how many understood the impact upon commercial real estate? Even today, we still have people who believe the remote work idea is just temporary and will revert back to "normal" once the fears of the pandemic subside.

We are not going back. This is the new normal. Technology does not reverse course nor do people once they embrace it. What this means is the change is permanent and going to keep growing.

It is a lesson that needs to be applied across the board.

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Technology Is Multi-Layered

The challenge with seeing the impact is that technology is multi-layered in terms of what it affects. It is rather simple to see the first generation yet it takes some foresight to delve to the second and third layer.

Let us use an example of how this works.

We will focus upon autonomous driving. This is a topic that gets a lot of attention and is certainly going to be something we deal with in the future. How soon this is a reality is anyone's guess. However, we can safely say it will be in place by the end of the decade. This should give us a bit of room to maneuver.

By the year 2030, if autonomous driving is our reality, what jobs do you think will be affected?

This is something that is discussed and we, naturally, see estimates of tens of millions of driving jobs will disappear. We have taxi and Uber drivers who will be replaced. Truckers are going to be made obsolete. Basically, anyone who drives for a living is going to be out of a job.

Anyone who researched this subject in the slightest is not surprised by these statements. It is the level of analysis we see all the time.

Is it sufficient though?

We need to remember that technology has a multi-layered impact.

Always Look To The Second And Third Layer

The real numbers emerge when we go to much greater levels of analysis.

For example, using the autonomous driving, we see a host of other jobs that will be affected. To what degree is not known but there will be some less.

What percentage of EMS calls are due to auto accidents? I once asked an EMT I knew and she said at least half her calls were to car wrecks. With autonomous driving, these go away.

We can ask the same question about emergency room visits. What percentage of them are related to vehicles crashing into each other?

Then we delve into the chiropractors and pain management offices. What about Big Pharma that produces pain killers that people disabled in car accidents eat like candy? In other words, what is the economic impact upon the medial establishment?

Of course, if we aren't destroying our cars by smashing them, we do not have to repair or replace them. This affects the auto body shops as well as the car dealerships. We can toss in insurance adjustors since they have nothing to look at. In fact, the entire insurance industry takes a hit since they cannot keep charging the premiums they do if people are not playing bumper cars.

Next we have to consider how things will change on a boarder scale. What if some cars that are hired end up being like cars on a train. Perhaps one needs to travel to a city 8-10 hours away. Presently, the choice is drive it or fly. Will short hop air travel be affected? Perhaps one simply get a "sleeper car" and travel overnight to the city while resting up.

How does this affect the motel industry? People obviously will not be stopping overnight if they are traveling while sleeping.

As we can see, the situation gets a lot more complex. While there will not be a 100% job elimination rate like at the first level, there is bound to be some impact. That means companies will have less business, resulting in greater job losses. At these levels, it might only be 10% or 15% but that soon adds up.

The issue is that a number of industries are affected, more than we first took a look at. This is how things usually work. Of course, if you ask those people who end up getting laid off why they lost their jobs, few will say because of technology. The reality is they didn't even make the connection yet that is exactly what happened.

Of course, a case could be made that this was taking place over a long period of time. Here is the United States participation rate. Notice how much it dropped over the past 20 years, even before COVID.

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The tentacles of technology go much further than people tend to think.


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Bang, I did it again... I just rehived your post!
Week 79 of my contest just started...you can now check the winners of the previous week!
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Wow that's a crazy ripple effect.

Yikes I think the world ripple is tainted now.
Not XRP!

In any case I thought the part about traveling alone while asleep was particularly noteworthy. Being able to work while traveling seems like an adjacent idea to that as well.

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At some point, once autonomous driving technology is out, I am convinced vehicle makers will start altering designs to increase their utility. I can foresee a day where you rent a vehicle that is a mini motel room or one that is like an office.

There will be different ones to choose from depending upon what you are looking for. Perhaps one like your living with the video gaming console set up.

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You could have them all in a semi-sized or smaller vehicle.

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Though automation is taking up a lot of human jobs but again creating those automation software requires a lot of human mind and thus in the years to come it will only come. So true that we need to upskill, so that we continue our jobs.

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Fascinating topic with logical progression. My vote power is depleted currently, but I reblogged the post. Cheers.

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That sure is a big ripple effect. One thing leads to another and we just keep losing jobs from one place to another. I

Automation will remove a lot of jobs but I wonder how long it will take for full autonomous driving to develop. Although I am bullish about Tesla, they also have had their fair share of issues and I am unsure just how much more data and software is needed.

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(Edited)

The service industry that caters to the trucking industry will be wiped out, too. Fuel and tires are the only things they would need (maybe neither if EV tech and lifetime tires are a reality) so truck stops/diners/showers/laundromats and all the rest of the goods and services that go with them are no longer needed.

Then think of the community aspect that goes away. No more hats/t-shirts/coffee mugs with a witty (or not) quip about a trucker's life, wife, or whatever. No more trucker community merchandise, period. No more music written about trucking. No more "Official Tire Thumpers" or cab customization merch.

And not to be crude or crass, but there's also an underground sex trade that operates on the back of the trucking industry that will collapse causing people already out of options to be pushed further beyond the brink. I mean, what's left after the local truck stop where you turn tricks for bottom dollar closes down?

One industry, and I doubt I've even scratched the surface.

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Hi @taskmaster4450

This is a very astute observation.
Life is like an onion, it has layers, and our society including our economy is inter-related and inter-dependent.

I remember when the big three automakers were all down for the count and bankruptcy talk was in the air. Some bright economists suggested that they be allowed to fail, as a better run company would emerge from their ashes.

But then others explained the domino effect, first the large automakers would close, then the metal suppliers would close, then the paint suppliers, then the cloth and leather suppliers, and then the small shops and factories making various parts and products which went into car. The ripple effect would have been huge.

I think your right, a similar ripple effect is coming, and we may not be prepared to re-train and re-skill these thousands of people who will be unemployed or under-employed. I think it is already happening on a small scale, as restaurants and fast food places deploy push button ordering stations instead of waitresses. Now they just need table servers, as people pay for their meal on the touch screen also.

Yep, times are changing fast.

@shortsegments

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A very in-depth explanation. I never really thought about the second and third layers you've mentioned. This topic really is controversial; it's good news to those business owners but a devastating blow to those working regular jobs. I guess time will tell how we will tackle this advancement of humanity.

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What would all these people that are loosing their jobs do?
I'm also thinking that these vaccine mandates at work that we see around the world are pushing towards jobs being replaced by automation and software. Last but not least, I'm wondering how fun will life on earth still be?...

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Yes exactly and that's one focus this " ripple effect", however it's also even worse than that as in what is it we do with the people who lose the jobs? So the lazy mind and lazy thinker. The person who wants to bury their heads in the sand or hope someone else solves the problem, politician, elon musk anyone but them. Will simply raise the idea of yea sure" however we went through several other industrial revolutions and it created new and more jobs so now these people just do the jobs of the new problems.. the new technologies created.

The thought process of we always got through technological changes and came out on the other end fine. Only we didn't come out on the other end fine. People died, starved to death. Lived in very poor states of health. Had riots and political upheaval.

The other more sophisticated part is biologically our cranium is only so big. Which means our brains are now at capacity. We can't store anymore information or compute or process it at a faster level. Which means myself as an employer would be dumb to hire some human being who is more liability in the workplace than asset. As you mention they are now becoming obsolete. That's inevitable, we know this. What are we doing about it? We going to play games to earn all day like squid games and invest in those pyramid ponzi schemes and we going to all become zumba instructors although it's a limit to how many people can teach everyone in the world zumba. Some people i'd say many of the people who are about to lose their jobs may be at the limit of their mental aptitude and cranium expansion because they won't be able to be retrained to do anything else. They can't be retrained now. I can easily believe they are at that limit now just based on how they think about this problem. They don't that's why your readers are just now having the light bulb go off on wow this may end up being a huge problem.

Now once we know it's a huge issue we gotta start making moves to do something about it. Not ignoring it and hoping it comes out okay. the problem is we do that not someone else. They don't know what to do just like we don't know what to do.

What this means then is we make this our focus. This is a huge issue up there with nuclear proliferation or a toxic environment or a global disease. This is at that level of events to occur. This is not my idea or perception. This is the idea of many people far smarter and more intelligent than i.

We should listen to them. What does it take for us to listen to them besides them pointing out the obvious? I'm open to any suggestion for the solving of the issue. Do we have any?

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(Edited)

I think you're right, remote works are not temporary, but permanent! People need to understand that the paradigm had change, and the current situation is the new normality. Greetings!

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