Tag: liberal arts

It looks like it may not be safe for millions of unskilled, low paid drones. The next couple decades may feel like getting dental work done by Szell for the burger flippers, retail clerks, and most liberal arts graduates currently working in the service industry.

If 80 million of the current 143 million jobs can be done by robots, the FSA could grow quite large. I wonder how the country would sustain itself with 70 million people working, while 200 million sit at home watching Jerry Springer?

Luckily for me I happen to be on the far left side of that chart where it is relatively safe. At least until this guy shows up some day to replace me.

Eighty million U.S. jobs are at risk from automation, a central bank official said Thursday.

Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane, speaking at the Trades Union Congress in London, said 80 million U.S. and 15 million U.K. jobs are in danger of being taken over by robots.

In October, the U.S. employed close to 143 million people outside the farm sector.

Haldane added the jobs that are most at risk from automation tend to have the lowest wage. “In other words, technology could act like a regressive income tax on the unskilled. It could further widen income disparities,” he said.

He did allow that, in past experience, technological advances end up boosting demand for new goods from new industries requiring new workers.

“Yet the smarter machines become, the greater the likelihood that the space remaining for uniquely-human skills could shrink further,” Haldane said. He said what was previously unthinkable even a decade ago is now reality, like a driverless car.

Being a central banker, Haldane further pointed out that the narrowing of slack is having less impact on wages than in the past. “That might arise because technology has made it easier and cheaper than ever before to substitute labor for capital, man for machine,” he said.

He said the case for raising interest rates in the U.K. “is still some way from being made.”