Technology Review #3: Potential Job Distruptors
A central theme at the Manna Project is that automation is going to destroy so many jobs in the coming years that society will not be able to adapt quick enough. There are a number of studies that are predicting the loss of tens of millions of jobs in the United States alone. Countries like China and those in the EU face similar percentages of losses.
This is one of the main reasons we believe a basic income is going to be necessary. This is purely a technological move that is going to destroy the jobs. It will be global in scale, affecting the third world nations first, before moving to the more developed ones.
Sadly, there are many who tend not to follow what is happening. We all lead busy lives so not spending one's day reading about technological innovations and how it will affect society is understandable. This is, however, a necessary part of the educational process that must be carried forward.
Each week, we are going to compile a few stories that show what is happening in this area. They will be linked to the original source and contain information about part of the oncoming technological boom.
We hope this helps each reader to garner some idea of the potential that is ahead of us. The studies done that conclude tens of millions of job losses is made real when one sees the research that is taking place.
Here are the latest submissions:
When people think of jobs being automated, factory workers or those in the fast food industry come to mind. Automation is not engaging in class warfare going after all types of jobs without exception.
The banking industry has a lot of high paying jobs. Unfortunately, it also has a lot of jobs that are ripe for automation. Anything that deals with numbers is ideal for this. Computers excel at numerical calculations and most analysis can be handled by algorithms.
Nordea banks is cutting 6,000 jobs that it is automating. The CEO believes half the industry's employees will be gone in a decade. This is a major industry globally that not only employs a lot of people, it also pays fairly well.
Speaking of the fast food industry, minimum wage hikes around the world are having an impact on the pace of automation being implemented.
In Korea, to offset the increase in the hourly minimum wage, establishments are starting to have orders placed through kiosks with automated cashiers for payments being installed. This serves to keep costs down while eliminating personnel that are employed.
One would figure it is only a matter of time before the larger corporations in the United States and the EU get wind of this.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2018/07/371_252952.html
Here we have an example of higher and lower end jobs being affected by automation. The troubling aspect to this is that these cases are isolated at the moment yet it is only a matter of time before it spreads across each industry. Fast food and banking employ hundreds of millions of works globally. How many are going to be at risk from these technologies?
This is the challenge that is before us: how many and how long will it take?
To get your weekly distribution of manna, sign up here: https://www.mannabase.com.
For more information about the Manna Project and how you can contribute, visit https://www.peoplescurrency.org/
After watching this, you know it’s only a matter of time before pizza deliverers are phased out.