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The rise of robots in the German labour market

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Re: The rise of robots in the German labour market

#61

Post by fnordian_slip »

readittwice wrote: post #60
fnordian_slip wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to what ManuelKiessling already said, I can also report that in my bubble this is not the case, but it is hard to accurately judge our bubbles. According to this bar chart on wealth distribution in the EU [1] there is a huge difference between the average and median wages in Germany, so I would expect the group of poor workers to be much larger than we think it is. Of course, being poor in Germany might m…

Your chart is about assets not income/wages as you claim. Since the chart is in German too, readers can't see that. People in Germany seem to prefer rent over freehold property, this might explain Germany's low numbers compared to other states.

Maybe my English skills aren't up to what I thought they were, so please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't "Bruttojahreseinkommen" "gross annual income"?

On the left there is wealth (/assets, "Vermögen"), then the next part is about the percentage of people who own houses ("Anteil Hausbesitzer"), and then comes the meat of the chart, the difference in gross annual income ("Bruttojahreseinkommen").

I am sorry to venture so far off topic, but I do most of my thinking either in German or in English which makes me vulnerable to stupid mistakes when the two overlap, so I would really appreciate it if you could tell me where I went wrong.

Re: The rise of robots in the German labour market

#62

Post by _pmf_ »

kensai wrote: post #5
sarabande wrote: post #2

It's admirable to me that unions protect low-skilled workers from losing their job, not by preventing them from getting fired at current wages, but by accepting wage decreases for their workers while getting them re-trained into jobs of higher cognitive skill. That seems like the fair and humane thing to do for workers, while at the same time not screwing over capital owners or stifling automation.

This. Germany is one of the few places that Unions are working (mostly) as intended. When Germany was under pressure in the Schröder era, it was the Unions that helped dealing with convincing the workers to accept shorter shifts and salaries, instead of pushing companies to relocation or, worse, bankruptcy.

> it was the Unions that helped dealing with convincing the workers to accept shorter shifts and salaries

Schröder paved the way for the Arbeitnehmerüberlassung, which causes a massive rise in time restricted contracts and external workforce. Unions are very happy to keep this going, as this keeps salaries for proper employees higher than ever (a 20000 EUR difference is not uncommon for the same job), and bonus payments that amount to 10000 EUR for Porsche and 6000 EUR for Daimler. For the growing number of employees working under these contracts, it amounts to having a 30 to 40 per cent lower salary to your colleague who works beside you, doing the same job. (Add to that the constant yapping of the SPD regarding a perceived gender based wage gap and you know why they are so detested in large parts of the population.)

Re: The rise of robots in the German labour market

#63

Post by _pmf_ »

readittwice wrote: post #60
fnordian_slip wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to what ManuelKiessling already said, I can also report that in my bubble this is not the case, but it is hard to accurately judge our bubbles. According to this bar chart on wealth distribution in the EU [1] there is a huge difference between the average and median wages in Germany, so I would expect the group of poor workers to be much larger than we think it is. Of course, being poor in Germany might m…

Your chart is about assets not income/wages as you claim. Since the chart is in German too, readers can't see that. People in Germany seem to prefer rent over freehold property, this might explain Germany's low numbers compared to other states.

> People in Germany seem to prefer rent over freehold property, this might explain Germany's low numbers compared to other states.

For the average German, buying a house means 30 years of debt: 300 000 EUR vs. 50 000 EUR salary (which is actually 30 000 EUR due to taxes and mandatory health insurance).

Re: The rise of robots in the German labour market

#64

Post by bigbugbag »

rndmize wrote: post #4

I'm not sure how useful it is to look at the effects of robotics in Germany in isolation. Germany exports a fair bit more than they import, and I'd expect if there are people being unemployed as a result of German use of robotics, it'd be in other parts of the EU that can no longer compete effectively.

The rise of automation replacing workers is not limited to Germany. It is a global issue happening all over the world

See "The Rise of the Machines – Why Automation is Different this Time" video by Kurzgesagt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSKi8HfcxEk

Re: The rise of robots in the German labour market

#65

Post by bigbugbag »

varjag wrote: post #25
Animats wrote: post #20

Note how small the ratio of robots to workers still is. 2 robots per thousand workers in the US, 8 per thousand in Germany. Those are still below 1% yet having an effect on wages. What happens at 10%? 20%? 50%? Few people thought in 1980 that there would be more computers than people in their lifetime.

Most mid-1980s technology books expected majority of production jobs taken over by robots any moment soon (and the rest going to ninja-like Japanese workers). Of course what happened is the jobs went to China.

> Of course what happened is the jobs went to China.

where they are in the process of being taken over by robots.

Re: The rise of robots in the German labour market

#66

Post by wiz21c »

avar wrote: post #12
wiz21c wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not admirable at all. It basically means that you're putting a competition between machines and humans. If machines do become smarter, then humans will be moved out of the equation (except for the 0.001% who can create and maintain the machines). This kind of fight may be good on the short term, but it legitimates the fact than man are inferior to machine. For example, it may soon legitimates that, contrary to…

Men are also inferior to machines when it comes to farm work, but judging from your comment you'd presumably like to go back to the good old days when over 50% of the population worked on farms.

No. My problem is not automation/mechanization, I'm all for that. My point is that, if we mechanizes, who pays the bill for lost/relocated jobs ?

Re: The rise of robots in the German labour market

#67

Post by tim333 »

jojoo wrote: post #23
kensai wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Germany is one of the few places that Unions are working (mostly) as intended. When Germany was under pressure in the Schröder era, it was the Unions that helped dealing with convincing the workers to accept shorter shifts and salaries, instead of pushing companies to relocation or, worse, bankruptcy.

As a member of the German Education and Science Union i have to strongly disagree. Germany is becoming a low income country for a lot of jobs and the unions are doing nothing against it. Year after year all German workers have collective bargaining agreements close to inflation, while the economy booms. The union-reps are in bed with the companys and workers eat it up.

>union-reps are in bed with the company...

I imagine more of the problem is German factories have to compete with those in lower wage EU countries like Poland and so have limited room to pay more.

Re: The rise of robots in the German labour market

#68

Post by readittwice »

fnordian_slip wrote: post #61
readittwice wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your chart is about assets not income/wages as you claim. Since the chart is in German too, readers can't see that. People in Germany seem to prefer rent over freehold property, this might explain Germany's low numbers compared to other states.

Maybe my English skills aren't up to what I thought they were, so please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't "Bruttojahreseinkommen" "gross annual income"? On the left there is wealth (/assets, "Vermögen"), then the next part is about the percentage of people who own houses ("Anteil Hausbesitzer"), and then comes the meat of the chart, the difference in gross annual income ("Bruttojahreseinkommen"). I am sorry to ven…

No sorry, you are right. There are also wages in this chart, I didnt't see that. Sorry for that...

But IMHO the difference between median and average isn't that big in Germany, even smaller than in Austria which doesn't have Hartz IV and Euro-Jobs. What would you consider acceptable? Also consider that these numbers may contain salaries for part-time jobs too. And those numbers are from 2010.

Re: The rise of robots in the German labour market

#69

Post by readittwice »

_pmf_ wrote: post #63
readittwice wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your chart is about assets not income/wages as you claim. Since the chart is in German too, readers can't see that. People in Germany seem to prefer rent over freehold property, this might explain Germany's low numbers compared to other states.

> People in Germany seem to prefer rent over freehold property, this might explain Germany's low numbers compared to other states. For the average German, buying a house means 30 years of debt: 300 000 EUR vs. 50 000 EUR salary (which is actually 30 000 EUR due to taxes and mandatory health insurance).

But is this really different in other countries? I would say the numbers also apply for Austria. Although 300k is probably more the lower bound. Even if you built the house yourself in the rural area of the country. Austria already has a higher number of freehold property compared to Germany.

IMHO much of the difference between countries in this regard can be explained by tradition, history or population density.

Re: The rise of robots in the German labour market

#70

Post by fnordian_slip »

readittwice wrote: post #68
fnordian_slip wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe my English skills aren't up to what I thought they were, so please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't "Bruttojahreseinkommen" "gross annual income"? On the left there is wealth (/assets, "Vermögen"), then the next part is about the percentage of people who own houses ("Anteil Hausbesitzer"), and then comes the meat of the chart, the difference in gross annual income ("Bruttojahreseinkommen"). I am sorry to ven…

No sorry, you are right. There are also wages in this chart, I didnt't see that. Sorry for that... But IMHO the difference between median and average isn't that big in Germany, even smaller than in Austria which doesn't have Hartz IV and Euro-Jobs. What would you consider acceptable? Also consider that these numbers may contain salaries for part-time jobs too. And those numbers are from 2010.

What would I consider acceptable? That's actually a good question, maybe I am just a bit hard to please. Now that I think about it again after a few days, you may be right, and I may just be too hard on Germany here.

It's probably just that I think that we should theoretically be in a good position to lower the divide between the rich and the poor, and instead it always seems to widen. I tend to forget that in a lot of other countries the situation is even worse, and maybe I should be thankful for what we have already achieved.

Thanks for the perspective, and a good Day of German Unity to you!

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