Thread: Future of Labor

White collar job being low-paid. Wages declining? Blue Collar jobs marketable, but many white collar jobs, not. A large pool of workers with no marketable skills for a living wage?

Comments and opinions welcome.

With the recent economic downturn, some prominent economists are starting to suggest that we're experiencing the front of a larger trend:

With advances in technology, labor (both white-collar and blue-collar) just isn't going to be worth much.

These economists say that we're going to see the demand for white-collar labor drop as computers take over "symbol processing tasks".

Gregory Clark, an economic historian at UC Davis, asserts that this is going to lead to an unprecedented concentration of wealth in the top tiers of society. In the future he envisions, 80%-90% of Americans will be unable to meaningfully contribute to the economy, and will basically live as wards of the state; imagine a handful of huge companies like Google, mostly running off algorithms.

Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate, agrees that demand for white collar labor is going to die out, but suggests that blue collar work like plumbing and nursing is going to replace those white collar jobs.

Some choice quotes from Krugman and Clark's articles (and links to their articles) appear at the end of this post.

Questions for discussion:

Is the information technology revolution fundamentally different from the technological revolutions that proceeded it?

Are we going to be Brave New World'ing it in about sixty years?

Where are the blue collar jobs that Krugman advocates going to come from? Why would we need significantly more veterinarians in the future? More plumbers? How many masseurs can one city really support? Why wouldn't technology influence blue collar jobs equally (auto workers in Detroit)?

What the heck are people going to be doing in about thirty years?

What's the smart play for 2009? Plastics? Machine learning?

Gregory Clark's take on the situation

Krugman's

Krugman's blog post



Gregory Clark, Economic Historian posted:

No, the economic problems of the future will not be about growth but about something more nettlesome: the ineluctable increase in the number of people with no marketable skills, and technology's role not as the antidote to social conflict, but as its instigator.

...

So, how do we operate a society in which a large share of the population is socially needy but economically redundant? There is only one answer. You tax the winners -- those with the still uniquely human skills, and those owning the capital and land -- to provide for the losers.

Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate, envisioning the future in 2096 posted:

Most important of all, the prophets of an "information economy" seem to have forgotten basic economics. When something becomes abundant, it also becomes cheap. A world awash in information will be a world in which information per se has very little market value. And in general when the economy becomes extremely good at doing something, that activity becomes less rather than more important. Late 20th-century America was supremely efficient at growing food; that was why it had hardly any farmers. Late 21st-century America is supremely efficient at processing routine information; that is why the traditional white-collar worker has virtually disappeared from the scene.

...

Eventually, of course, the eroding payoff to higher education created a crisis in the education industry itself. Why should a student put herself through four years of college and several years of postgraduate work in order to acquire academic credentials with hardly any monetary value? These days jobs that require only six or twelve months of vocational training -- paranursing, carpentry, household maintenance (a profession that has taken over much of the housework that used to be done by unpaid spouses), and so on -- pay nearly as much as one can expect to earn with a master's degree, and more than one can expect to earn with a Ph.D.

...

But celebrity, though more common than ever before, still does not come easily. And that is why writing this article is such an opportunity. I actually don't mind my day job in the veterinary clinic, but I have always wanted to be a full-time economist; an article like this might be just what I need to make my dream come true.

3 links above with the opinions noted above.

I wouldn't entrust my dog's welfare or piggy bank to Krugman.

I agree with the loss of jobs in some white collar industries, especially finance. This was a reason I found it ironic that the push for higher education is so strong. A kid pays up to a few hundred Gs for an MBA, so he can get a job at a construction site? Why bother. Drop out of high school, sign on at a union and get annual pay hikes for doing the same job and then perks for the rest of your life.
But, I do not think computers will take over. People want a human touch and I still think only human brains have the creativity to develop new ideas, solve problems based on more social issues, argue a case in court, arbitrate a dispute. But, hey, if you want to elect Hal for Prez, it can't be any worse that the US has now.

Nah, been this way for years. Blue collar workers have always made more than any govt job with similar experience.

The difference is job security. Blues are dropped like a dime when unneeded, govs cant be dropped so easily. It's a simple tradeoff. Same as working for a contractor vs getting a gov job.

Originally Posted by Texpat

Nah, been this way for years. Blue collar workers have always made more than any govt job with similar experience.

The difference is job security. Blues are dropped like a dime when unneeded, govs cant be dropped so easily. It's a simple tradeoff. Same as working for a contractor vs getting a gov job.

You already stated this in your first post as a response.

How about the private sector?

Should a blue collar wrench bender make more than his white collar boss?

Good luck with that.

Should the gap be narrowed? Maybe

Depends on the trade. Will it be? Doubtful.

Originally Posted by Texpat

Should a blue collar wrench bender make more than his white collar boss?

Good luck with that.

Should the gap be narrowed? Maybe

Depends on the trade. Will it be? Doubtful.

The article notes the gap has narrowed over the past decades.

Originally Posted by Texpat

Can you imagine a scenario where a newly-arrived apprentice makes the same as his 30-year-on-the job boss?

*shudder*

Where in the article does it say that an apprentice will make the same as his 30-year-on-the-job boss?

I didn't see that in the article.

Where did you see this?

Eventually, in retirement that is, earned income will drop to near zero. No tax on zero!

But what about retirement savings and assets? If Gregory Clark is correct these may be taxed heavily. A long term plan to hide income producing assets and capital assets from taxation will keep taxes low and provide access to ever expanding government services. It seems we will all have to become money hiding jew schemers to survive.

Originally Posted by jim1176

Eventually, in retirement that is, earned income will drop to near zero. No tax on zero!

But what about retirement savings and assets? If Gregory Clark is correct these may be taxed heavily. A long term plan to hide income producing assets and capital assets from taxation will keep taxes low and provide access to ever expanding government services. It seems we will all have to become money hiding jew schemers to survive.

Then we'll finally be able to call it just money-hiding schemers. Total harmony.

This concept about falling wages in this thread was also supported by an article I posted in the "Strongest Economy in the World" thread, yesterday.

Less jobs, declining wages. More people looking for fewer jobs - since the year 2001.

It's not about opinion, nor my opinion, it's about numbers.