Good News: Automation Already Destroyed Most of the Jobs
20th December 2016
A lot of people worry that robots — or more generally, software and automation — will take everyone’s job. One study found that almost half of US jobs are capable of being automated over the next two decades.
But automating routine jobs isn’t something that might happen in the future. To a large extent, it’s something that already happened. Today, just 8 percent of American workers work in the manufacturing sector — less than a third of the share 50 years ago. Another 6 percent work in industries like construction, mining, and agriculture that are involved in producing physical goods.
These are the sorts of jobs people refer to when they whine about ‘shipping our jobs overseas’.
What do the rest of US workers do? They’re in service industries like health care, education, retail, hospitality, and local government. It’s not necessarily that jobs in these industries can’t be automated. Some of them can, as technologies like self-checkout kiosks and exercise videos make clear.
But in most cases, customers don’t want them to be automated, because automated versions of the service aren’t as good. Most of these jobs are automation-proof because people like interacting with other people.
My wife loves using the automated check-out area in stores. I hate it, and will gladly stand in line to work with a Real Person. One of the two Costco stores nearby has a couple of automated check-out lines, and recently I was in line at one with a Real Person when a helpful Costco employee approached me and pointed out that the automated lines were free. ‘I hate those things and will not use them’, I responded, and was started to receive a round of applause from the people standing in line with me.