We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future • Hacker News Board

Re: We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future

#171

Post by Nicknameless » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 3:21 AM UTC

waterside81 wrote: post #83

ikarous wrote: post #6

Plenty of others have predicted the rise of unemployment in proportion to increased automation, and they've been wrong before. Maybe this time they'll be right. I don't know; I'm not economist nor do I possess a crystal ball. What I do know is that this whole situation is terribly discouraging for young people fresh out of school. My partner, for instance, recently graduated with a degree in civil engineering from a…

From your other responses, it looks like you're American? If you're willing to move up to communist Canada (I kid, I kid), we're starving for engineers. Alberta needs civil engineers for their oil industry, and Ontario & the City of Toronto are hiring too.

Slightly further afield, communist Australia has major skills shortages. I doubt engineers would have serious visa problems.

Re: We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future

#172

Post by randomdata » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 3:22 AM UTC

clistctrl wrote: post #53

pg wrote: post #24

"Our new economy is shrinking because technology leads to efficiency over growth." Anyone who wants to make the claim that technology is net killing jobs has to be prepared to answer the question: why now? Technology has been killing (but not net killing) jobs for centuries. It's possible that technology could start to net kill jobs. But why now, when it hasn't in the past?

I think the difference between today, and the past is the rate of change, and the barrier of entry for a displaced worker to move. The industrial revolution happened over decades, but the digital revolution happened in just a few years. People are being displaced first by 3rd world countries, and second by machines which is faster than they may be prepared to deal with. Additionally they may not be capable of making…

> but the digital revolution happened in just a few years

Going to have to disagree on that one. I recall twenty-some years ago, the death of manufacturing due to robotics was a hot debate and something discussed all over mainstream media. The warnings were sent loud and clear.

Which always leaves me with concern. Why did the people in manufacturing not take the time to retool their skills over the past two decades when the fate was clear? When the technology industry ultimately suffers the same fate, will I see the signs and move on, or will I be left struggling to find work too?

Re: We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future

#173

Post by threnody » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 3:28 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #24

"Our new economy is shrinking because technology leads to efficiency over growth." Anyone who wants to make the claim that technology is net killing jobs has to be prepared to answer the question: why now? Technology has been killing (but not net killing) jobs for centuries. It's possible that technology could start to net kill jobs. But why now, when it hasn't in the past?

To assume that humans are basically fungible when it comes to competing in an agrarian society makes sense. To make the same assumption in an industrial society is questionable. To assert so in a technologically complex, automated, digitalized, globally competitive post-industrial society is - being willfully blind. And that is why now is different.

Re: We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future

#174

Post by bzbarsky » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 3:29 AM UTC

ww520 wrote: post #77

ChristianMarks wrote: post #10

The OP's post could use some context. Ricardo’s concept of comparative advantage was forged in a world where labor and capital were essentially fixed. England could weave cloth more efficiently than Spain, but Spain could make wine more efficiently than England. Therefore, they would both benefit from trade given that each of these countries had a comparative benefit or efficiency to offer. The assumption under compa…

I am curious. How does Germany do it? It has high labor cost yet it maintains its manufacture leadership and has export surplus. China and Germany become manufacture powerhouses yet have vast difference in labor cost structure.

The key to being a net exporter (which is not quite the same as being a "manufacturing powerhouse", but _is_ what China and Germany have in common) is government policies repressing domestic consumption and productivity that is high given the wage structure. As long as your population is forced to consume less than it can produce, chances are you will be able to export the surplus somewhere.

Both Germany and China have such policies, in fact. It means that in both cases consumption (aka "the standard of living" as it's typically measured, for better or for worse) is lower in both than it could be if workers' spending power were allowed to match labor productivity.

http://www.financialsense.com/node/5580 is a good read about some of the issues.

Re: We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future

#175

Post by sachinag » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 4:11 AM UTC

achompas wrote: post #104

sachinag wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would improve faster if your bosses would engage in QE3 and started to inflate the economy. [Edit: that's an attack on the Board of Governors, certainly not you.]

Well, they're not my bosses anymore. I'm moving into software and applied stats now. :) I'm torn about QE3. There's little evidence that businesses are waiting on it specifically to make capital expenditure decisions; it seems, from reading the Beige Book and other anecdotes that companies might be waiting for the other shoe to drop. QE3 would just adjust the shoe on the foot a bit.

Well, we could start charging the banks for carrying excess capital. I know, I know, everyone will start screaming about crappy balance sheets and all, but they're just sitting on boatloads of cash.

Re: We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future

#176

Post by BuddhaSource » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 4:27 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #24

"Our new economy is shrinking because technology leads to efficiency over growth." Anyone who wants to make the claim that technology is net killing jobs has to be prepared to answer the question: why now? Technology has been killing (but not net killing) jobs for centuries. It's possible that technology could start to net kill jobs. But why now, when it hasn't in the past?

Why now?

Well we are living in exponential era, everything that happened in the past has been fast forwarded exponentially. Fast Fast Fast forward, the rate is exponential.

Look at last 10yrs & compare the growth 20-30yrs ago, or rate of global warming, or how fast you travel today or efficiency in communication, or how much time did google take to become threat to Microsoft, or facebook to google, or even youngest billion air!

You name it! This rate can be catastrophic for us.

Re: We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future

#177

Post by lsc » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 4:49 AM UTC

temphn wrote: post #156

Eliezer wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PG, what probability would you assign to the propositions "This time things are different" (empirically: the jobs won't come back 5 years from now) vs. "This time things are not different" (empirically: the jobs will come back 5 years from now)? Warning, if your probabilities are extreme enough, someone might want to bet you on it. Presuming things are different, I see five obvious answers to the original question (a…

6) The educational level (or mean cognitive ability) of the US population has been decreasing just as the cognitive thresholds for gainful employment are steadily increasing. You'd say education if you were on the left and might say cognition if you were on the right. Someone should plot the time series of BLS occupational statistics, with the minimum required education/IQ levels for each job. On the one hand the IQ…

"the IQ profile of the US is trending down."

citation needed.

Last time I looked, the flynn effect was still in full swing.

Re: We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future

#178

Post by philwelch » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 5:03 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #24

"Our new economy is shrinking because technology leads to efficiency over growth." Anyone who wants to make the claim that technology is net killing jobs has to be prepared to answer the question: why now? Technology has been killing (but not net killing) jobs for centuries. It's possible that technology could start to net kill jobs. But why now, when it hasn't in the past?

I wonder if Jevons paradox applies here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Jevons paradox is that "technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is used tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that resource". Watt's more efficient steam engine increased the consumption of coal, the cotton gin increased the consumption of slave labor, and virtualization has increased the consumption of servers. If technology can increase the efficiency of human labor, won't it increase the demand for labor as well?

Re: We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future

#179

Post by rberger » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 5:04 AM UTC

Is this a bug or a feature? Shouldn't we be figuring out how to embrace this? Isn't this an symptom that the abundent future is arriving, but not evenly distributed? Is it not time to start figuring out how to create the vocabulary and institutions of modulating abundance instead of maintaining 19th Century institutions whose main purpose was to modulate scarcity?

The fact that "Finance" is now over 30% of the US GDP shows a major bug in the current set of institutions. That is where abundance is being dampened into wasted wealth for 0.1% of the population who are using it to maintain artificial scarcity. It needs to flow to help fund creativity, R&D, experiments that will blow the doors off of scarcity and allow abundance to be well, abundant.

And most people don't want JOBS, they want to live. But most of us have forgotten that and thus we keep trying for 100% employment when we should be working towards 100% UNemployment aka Living Life.

Re: We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future

#180

Post by crux_ » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 5:22 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #24

"Our new economy is shrinking because technology leads to efficiency over growth." Anyone who wants to make the claim that technology is net killing jobs has to be prepared to answer the question: why now? Technology has been killing (but not net killing) jobs for centuries. It's possible that technology could start to net kill jobs. But why now, when it hasn't in the past?

> Why now?

Because increases in consumption are no longer able to keep pace with increased productivity?