The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages • Hacker News Board

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#21

Post by creshal » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 10:14 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #16

creshal wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And with the refugee crisis we just magnify the problem because the refugees will have to be integrated, they have to learn German and still lots of them will be lower educated than the rest :/ The EU already has 23 million unemployed (and a lot more in minimum-wage bullshit jobs nobody wants or needs), a million refugees won't make problems significantly worse than they already are.

> a million refugees won't make problems significantly worse than they already are. Oh yes, they already do. The housing market in German cities is already fucked up beyond limits because our politicians have slept for years, and 1.5m refugees now needing winter-resistant housing (so, no tents) bring the market to its knees. But I'm thankful for the refugees, because they show our politicians they can't sleep forever…

That's a different problem from employment, though – but yes, it's nice to see that, after 10 years in office, Merkel actually has to do something for a change.

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#22

Post by SideburnsOfDoom » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 10:23 AM UTC

gadders wrote: post #19

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #3

A newspaper which is pro the right-of-center government, pro big business says that there is no need to reign in big business; because despite their winning streak over the last few decades and the mounting criticism of mounting inequality, things are going to turn against them any day now , honest! Film at 11.

The mounting criticism of mounting inequality is a political position. It's not an objective statement of fact. They are free to ignore it if they disagree with it.

> The mounting criticism of mounting inequality is a political position. It's not an objective statement of fact.

The mounting inequality itself is however not just an opinion.

> They are free to ignore the mounting criticism

But they're not ignoring it as such, and IMHO it's gotten to the point where it would be foolish to do so. So now they're supplying an alternative political position on what to do - i.e. don't worry, markets will sort everything out.

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#23

Post by icebraining » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 10:30 AM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #22

gadders wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mounting criticism of mounting inequality is a political position. It's not an objective statement of fact. They are free to ignore it if they disagree with it.

> The mounting criticism of mounting inequality is a political position. It's not an objective statement of fact. The mounting inequality itself is however not just an opinion. > They are free to ignore the mounting criticism But they're not ignoring it as such, and IMHO it's gotten to the point where it would be foolish to do so. So now they're supplying an alternative political position on what to do - i.e. don't w…

The mounting inequality itself is however not just an opinion.

But how much inequality is a problem is an opinion, I'm afraid.

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#24

Post by iofj » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 10:39 AM UTC

SixSigma wrote: post #8

mschuster91 wrote: post #4

This might be true for high-skilled jobs, yes. But the vast armies of uneducated, second-or-third-generation-jobless people will have their jobs slaughtered by automation. Truck/cab/freight delivery will be automated, freight handling and shipping will be automated, cleaning of public and private areas will be automated. The only field I can see which will depend on low-skilled worker armies is construction. And with…

Truck drivers are in short supply. There is also a trend in mainand Europe to schedule more freight into the hinterland from ports on trains and waterways - so called Synchromodal Transport [1] The new APM automated continer port in Rotterdam [2] is set to handle 4m containers per year using automated vehicles and cranes - with few operators on the dockside (just for the two train cranes and one barge crane) - the ot…

Luckily they're on it :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3258829/Driverless-t...

Everybody's missing the really bad thing about these trucks and self-driving cars though. Everything is patent encumbered. So they will transform a bottom up industry (dependant on people to drive the trucks, trucks which can be produced by any of a 1000 companies) into a top-down patent-encumbered capital-intensive industry (because only one company will get self-driving cars thanks to our patent system). There will be one company driving these trucks, not many like today.

This will destroy truck drivers, yes, absolutely. However something it will also do is sink every KMO that has trucks driving, which is a a lot of them here in Germany.

So give it another 10 years and "oh no hell no to self driving trucks/cars" will be one of the few things socialists and capitalists/liberalists agree on, because it will destroy the constituency of both parties. I also seriously doubt they can reliably deliver cargo in the central streets of Germany's cities. The ones built in the 14th century which are about wide enough for a single horse carriage (very tight for a car, and truck drivers actually manage to squeeze in (you -often- have to forgive some damage of course))

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#25

Post by iofj » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 10:41 AM UTC

dazc wrote: post #18

mschuster91 wrote: post #4

This might be true for high-skilled jobs, yes. But the vast armies of uneducated, second-or-third-generation-jobless people will have their jobs slaughtered by automation. Truck/cab/freight delivery will be automated, freight handling and shipping will be automated, cleaning of public and private areas will be automated. The only field I can see which will depend on low-skilled worker armies is construction. And with…

"The only field I can see which will depend on low-skilled worker armies is construction." The trend in construction for the past decade has been towards less labour intensity. So no good news here either.

Construction is already beyond the big wins in labor force though. Construction sites used to have armies of workers. Hundreds. Now they have perhaps a dozen for large skyscrapers, 5 for normal skyscrapers and one or two for houses.

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#26

Post by kpil » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 10:58 AM UTC

sageikosa wrote: post #20

mschuster91 wrote: post #4

This might be true for high-skilled jobs, yes. But the vast armies of uneducated, second-or-third-generation-jobless people will have their jobs slaughtered by automation. Truck/cab/freight delivery will be automated, freight handling and shipping will be automated, cleaning of public and private areas will be automated. The only field I can see which will depend on low-skilled worker armies is construction. And with…

You are missing service industries in general and elder care (poignantly relevant with the article's emphasis on demographic shift) specifically. A large older population with a smaller worker pool to draw on will drive up demand for caregivers, exhausting the rapidly devaluing savings of the elder generations.

Most people would prefer being wiped in the ass by a robot.

There are really strong incentives for automation in healthcare.

When talking about the immigrants and refugees working with elders; Unfortunately, even the "human touch" and the social part of the job is sometimes problematic because of cultural and language barriers... (Also applies to the opposite situation, elder immigrants receiving care.)

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#27

Post by gadders » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 11:07 AM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #22

gadders wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mounting criticism of mounting inequality is a political position. It's not an objective statement of fact. They are free to ignore it if they disagree with it.

> The mounting criticism of mounting inequality is a political position. It's not an objective statement of fact. The mounting inequality itself is however not just an opinion. > They are free to ignore the mounting criticism But they're not ignoring it as such, and IMHO it's gotten to the point where it would be foolish to do so. So now they're supplying an alternative political position on what to do - i.e. don't w…

For mounting inequality, it depends who you ask and where. It's not increased in the UK for instance: http://blogs.new.spectator.co.uk/2015/09/stiglitz-piketty-je...

Of course, this is from a right-wing magazine, so they could just be making it up to appease their owners or something.

And it also depends on the definition of poverty. Is it absolute or relative? As soon as you start talking about relative poverty, you are effectively arguing for wealth redistribution.

//EDIT: swapped poverty in for inequality above//

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#28

Post by spacecowboy_lon » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 11:13 AM UTC

gregjwild wrote: post #15

SixSigma wrote: post #2

And the home secretary is going to say today that immigration is bad for the economy ! In my sector, Supply Chain Management, we are facing a skills shortage. * Warehouse operatives are moving from many low skilled pickers to a few skilled robot sitters and the latter are in short supply. * Procurement - moving from the soft skills of buying person to person over the phone to electronic exchange and online bidding -…

Interestingly, there is pressure on both sides there - greater automation means that new skills are needed for the few jobs left, but the fact you're talking about training a handful, rather than training at scale makes for more expensive training per head.

Well Amazon still has a large number of bodies I live near the UK's big warehouse and overheard some interesting gossip about that.

Basically the rumor is that Amazon might have similar problems to Ford did in the UK where Junior supervisors are playing favorites

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#29

Post by drewm1980 » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 11:27 AM UTC

sageikosa wrote: post #20

mschuster91 wrote: post #4

This might be true for high-skilled jobs, yes. But the vast armies of uneducated, second-or-third-generation-jobless people will have their jobs slaughtered by automation. Truck/cab/freight delivery will be automated, freight handling and shipping will be automated, cleaning of public and private areas will be automated. The only field I can see which will depend on low-skilled worker armies is construction. And with…

You are missing service industries in general and elder care (poignantly relevant with the article's emphasis on demographic shift) specifically. A large older population with a smaller worker pool to draw on will drive up demand for caregivers, exhausting the rapidly devaluing savings of the elder generations.

I didn't get why the savings are supposed to devalue. The elder care costs for the super-rich is a drop in the bucket for them, and they can and will still use the rest of their wealth to pay poorer people (and robots) to generate them more wealth.

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#30

Post by IanCal » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 11:31 AM UTC

iofj wrote: post #24

SixSigma wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truck drivers are in short supply. There is also a trend in mainand Europe to schedule more freight into the hinterland from ports on trains and waterways - so called Synchromodal Transport [1] The new APM automated continer port in Rotterdam [2] is set to handle 4m containers per year using automated vehicles and cranes - with few operators on the dockside (just for the two train cranes and one barge crane) - the ot…

Luckily they're on it : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3258829/Driverless-t... Everybody's missing the really bad thing about these trucks and self-driving cars though. Everything is patent encumbered. So they will transform a bottom up industry (dependant on people to drive the trucks, trucks which can be produced by any of a 1000 companies) into a top-down patent-encumbered capital-intensive industry (beca…

> I also seriously doubt they can reliably deliver cargo in the central streets of Germany's cities.

I'm always pretty curious about why people, even on HN, seem to equate "this needs high precision" with "automated systems won't cope" when it comes to driverless cars. Saying something is really hard for a person because it requires careful, precise control sounds like exactly the sort of thing you want machines for.

So what is it about the task that is complex for a machine to solve?