The End of Manual Labor?

[billvon 2,997]

11 hours ago, normiss said:

I've been in IT since the early 80's.

The jobs I've had have "gone away" 3 times.

Adapt to the changes and learn new skills. Skills that pay significantly more.

Unfortunately IT is not unskilled labor.

People with skills will always have good opportunities for employment.   But what do we do about the rest?

[brenthutch 444]

18 minutes ago, billvon said:

Unfortunately IT is not unskilled labor.

People with skills will always have good opportunities for employment.   But what do we do about the rest?

Construction, roofing, landscaping, demolition, heavy machinery operators, apprenticeships for plumbing, HVAV, mechanics, electricians etc.  BTW those are all jobs that can not be easily automated.  It’s worth noting we have eliminated tens of thousands of checkout clerk jobs and the unemployment rate remains at near or record lows. 

Edited September 25, 2023 by brenthutch

[normiss 801]

14 minutes ago, billvon said:

Unfortunately IT is not unskilled labor.

People with skills will always have good opportunities for employment.   But what do we do about the rest?

Manual labor on assembly lines can and have been retrained for tech jobs.

Friends on the auto lines in Detroit - 1 went into robotics and maintains the machinery on the lines, the other went into auto engineering and is working on driveline designs. CAD operators are still in need as well.

I do realize some hardcore manual labor folks will continue to have challenges, adult education/continuing education is available, and some immigrants are having success with family recipe food trucks for just a few examples.

Others will continue to need help, and some people just seem to have endless bad luck in life forever - as a society I hope we continue to assist where we can.

[JoeWeber 2,722]

26 minutes ago, normiss said:

Manual labor on assembly lines can and have been retrained for tech jobs.

Friends on the auto lines in Detroit - 1 went into robotics and maintains the machinery on the lines, the other went into auto engineering and is working on driveline designs. CAD operators are still in need as well.

I do realize some hardcore manual labor folks will continue to have challenges, adult education/continuing education is available, and some immigrants are having success with family recipe food trucks for just a few examples.

Others will continue to need help, and some people just seem to have endless bad luck in life forever - as a society I hope we continue to assist where we can.

Initiative almost always wins the day even when faced with a new culture and a new language. In America even those who support a strong social net do so in a somewhat limited way. Who here, for example, is willing to give up 50% or more of what they earn to feed only the hungry in America? Someone might chirp that they would but the caveat will be that it has to be the same for all and that is just not happening.

I don't think it's a problem our species can solve without giving up on the idea of equal rights for all. That is: we'll feed you and house you but the choices are all ours and you'll live by our rules or else. Like the rules kids live by. But we can't do that, so that's out, too.

Now, it's true that the concept of a basic income has some merit but just wait until there are enough takers on the dole to form unions and demand more. Imagine a Million Peasant March on Washington or mass sit in's on Wall Street. I wouldn't bet against the possibility.

[olofscience 480]

1 hour ago, brenthutch said:

We are going to need to increase our reliance on automation as many industrial regions are facing an aging workforce with birth rates well below replacement levels. China, Japan, Russia, much of the EU and yes even the United States are all demographically declining or flat-lining. Not only is automation good for our future, it’s critical.

Completely agree.

We need to automate as much as possible, and have a plan in place once we automate our own jobs (and that plan shouldn't be to hire people for useless and obsolete jobs, or to skip on automation).

16 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

Who here, for example, is willing to give up 50% or more of what they earn to feed only the hungry in America?

Luckily, because of technology we only need to spend 3% of our GDP to produce all the food we need. Nowhere close to 50%. (and it will get smaller)

[billvon 2,997]

1 hour ago, normiss said:

Manual labor on assembly lines can and have been retrained for tech jobs.

Friends on the auto lines in Detroit - 1 went into robotics and maintains the machinery on the lines, the other went into auto engineering and is working on driveline designs. CAD operators are still in need as well.

I do realize some hardcore manual labor folks will continue to have challenges, adult education/continuing education is available, and some immigrants are having success with family recipe food trucks for just a few examples.

Others will continue to need help, and some people just seem to have endless bad luck in life forever - as a society I hope we continue to assist where we can.

Who then compete with the existing tech job people - if they can be retrained.

I'll give you two examples here.

The first is Weston.  I had him as an intern while I was at Qualcomm; he was in high school at the time.  We filed two patents together, and he built an induction furnace for fun to melt stuff.  He went on to MIT then got his PhD at Stanford in power electronics.  He's looking for a job now.

The second is Joe.  Joe was a janitor at Cantiaque Park in New York and part of my summer job was to "keep an eye" on him as he did his rounds.  I had to keep an eye on him because he had cut his finger off while changing a toilet paper role a few years back and they didn't want another lawsuit from his family.   He did NOT have Down Syndrome - he told me "he'd been tested."  But his intelligence level was such that he had trouble operating a mop (and of course changing rolls of toilet paper.)

For every Weston out there there's a Joe.  Weston will always be able to find work.  Joe could barely handle being a janitor.  And when his job is replaced by a cleaning robot, or a larger paper towel dispenser, or even nanocoatings that make dirt slide down the drain, he won't be able to be retrained for a new job.  And even if it isn't replaced, he is going to have to compete with all the OTHER low skilled workers who have been displaced by robotic garbage trucks, robocallers and lawnmower robots.

So that's going to be the challenge we face in the years to come.   And it's going to take a significant change to accommodate them.

[JoeWeber 2,722]

1 minute ago, olofscience said:

Luckily, because of technology we only need to spend 3% of our GDP to produce all the food we need. Nowhere close to 50%. (and it will get smaller)

OK, so then what explains all of the starving people we already have? Food is one component, delivery infrastructure is another.

[billvon 2,997]

20 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

Now, it's true that the concept of a basic income has some merit but just wait until there are enough takers on the dole to form unions and demand more. Imagine a Million Peasant March on Washington or mass sit in's on Wall Street. I wouldn't bet against the possibility.

The alternative might be a Million Peasant March on Washington (and the Bay Area, and New York etc) a la the French Revolution. 

I saw a stat the other day that the income inequality we see today is approaching the levels seen right before the French Revolution.    To take one example, historians estimate that 20% of the people in late 18th-century France made ~%62 of the country's income. In the U.S. that number is 52% and rising.

[billvon 2,997]

2 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

OK, so then what explains all of the starving people we already have? Food is one component, delivery infrastructure is another.

Income inequality, greed and capitalism.

[JoeWeber 2,722]

4 minutes ago, billvon said:

So that's going to be the challenge we face in the years to come.   And it's going to take a significant change to accommodate them.

Yep, and the problem is that it's more in our nature to conquer the weak than to help them be strong.

[normiss 801]

8 minutes ago, billvon said:

Who then compete with the existing tech job people - if they can be retrained.

I'll give you two examples here.

The first is Weston.  I had him as an intern while I was at Qualcomm; he was in high school at the time.  We filed two patents together, and he built an induction furnace for fun to melt stuff.  He went on to MIT then got his PhD at Stanford in power electronics.  He's looking for a job now.

The second is Joe.  Joe was a janitor at Cantiaque Park in New York and part of my summer job was to "keep an eye" on him as he did his rounds.  I had to keep an eye on him because he had cut his finger off while changing a toilet paper role a few years back and they didn't want another lawsuit from his family.   He did NOT have Down Syndrome - he told me "he'd been tested."  But his intelligence level was such that he had trouble operating a mop (and of course changing rolls of toilet paper.)

For every Weston out there there's a Joe.  Weston will always be able to find work.  Joe could barely handle being a janitor.  And when his job is replaced by a cleaning robot, or a larger paper towel dispenser, or even nanocoatings that make dirt slide down the drain, he won't be able to be retrained for a new job.  And even if it isn't replaced, he is going to have to compete with all the OTHER low skilled workers who have been displaced by robotic garbage trucks, robocallers and lawnmower robots.

So that's going to be the challenge we face in the years to come.   And it's going to take a significant change to accommodate them.

I'm seeing this in production manufacturing factories I'm supporting now.

Companies are offering $30/hr to work in the factory. Menial manual labor. Spending the entire shift moving a product from one spot to another. It's getting harder and harder to find and retain workers that want to do this, much less for a lifetime. The turnover of skilled employees that know how portions of the manufacturing process works is VERY challenging. The industrial controls and automation is slightly better in finding and keeping people because of the skills/pay required for technical jobs. There used to be stock options and profit sharing incentives that actually could make you a millionaire by the time you reached retirement. That was when it was a family owned company though. Now that it's a publicly traded stock and investor owned company with profits on the line - corporate greed is the driving force.

I'm selfishly thankful for a career in tech that puts me in a better place in such companies, but it is still harmful to the success of the lives of the hourly workers. It's also quite a dangerous environment for the Joe's in the company too.

[JerryBaumchen 1,365]

18 minutes ago, billvon said:

Who then compete with the existing tech job people - if they can be retrained.

I'll give you two examples here.

The first is Weston.  I had him as an intern while I was at Qualcomm; he was in high school at the time.  We filed two patents together, and he built an induction furnace for fun to melt stuff.  He went on to MIT then got his PhD at Stanford in power electronics.  He's looking for a job now.

The second is Joe.  Joe was a janitor at Cantiaque Park in New York and part of my summer job was to "keep an eye" on him as he did his rounds.  I had to keep an eye on him because he had cut his finger off while changing a toilet paper role a few years back and they didn't want another lawsuit from his family.   He did NOT have Down Syndrome - he told me "he'd been tested."  But his intelligence level was such that he had trouble operating a mop (and of course changing rolls of toilet paper.)

For every Weston out there there's a Joe.  Weston will always be able to find work.  Joe could barely handle being a janitor.  And when his job is replaced by a cleaning robot, or a larger paper towel dispenser, or even nanocoatings that make dirt slide down the drain, he won't be able to be retrained for a new job.  And even if it isn't replaced, he is going to have to compete with all the OTHER low skilled workers who have been displaced by robotic garbage trucks, robocallers and lawnmower robots.

So that's going to be the challenge we face in the years to come.   And it's going to take a significant change to accommodate them.

Hi Bill,

Spot on.  This is exactly what my original post was all about.  

I am a ret'd engineer [ but, I am still an engineer, that will never change ] and I love new technology.  The big BUT is what about those that have been replaced?

As you said, the $64,000 question.

Jerry Baumchen

 

[brenthutch 444]

7 hours ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Bill,

Spot on.  This is exactly what my original post was all about.  

I am a ret'd engineer [ but, I am still an engineer, that will never change ] and I love new technology.  The big BUT is what about those that have been replaced?

As you said, the $64,000 question.

Jerry Baumchen

 

It’s no more a mystery than what happened to those manual loom operators or check out clerks.  They moved on to other, and often better, vocations. 

[wmw999 2,452]

1 minute ago, brenthutch said:

It’s no more a mystery than what happened to those manual loom operators or check out clerks.  They moved on to other, and often better, vocations. 

Kind of like buggy and ICE auto workers, and coal miners, in the long run. They still exist, but as a niche market

Wendy P. 

[brenthutch 444]

19 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

Kind of like buggy and ICE auto workers, and coal miners, in the long run. They still exist, but as a niche market

Wendy P. 

Or EV, solar or wind companies, let the market decide no need for government molestation.

BTW I still haven’t received an explanation on why I was given a time-out for describing the attributes of the AR platform on a forum that EXPLICITLY lists guns as an appropriate topic of conversation.

In the absence of an explanation, an apology will suffice.

That is if you have a shred of integrity.

Edited September 26, 2023 by brenthutch

[JerryBaumchen 1,365]

19 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

Kind of like buggy and ICE auto workers, and coal miners, in the long run. They still exist, but as a niche market

Wendy P. 

Hi Wendy,

I've often wondered what a farrier, working in Detroit in Oct 1908, might have thought as he watched all of those Model T's coming out of the factory.

Jerry Baumchen

Edited September 26, 2023 by JerryBaumchen

[brenthutch 444]

3 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Wendy,

I've often wondered what a farrier, working in Detroit in Oct 1908, might have thought as he watched all of those Model T's coming out of the factory.

Jerry Baumchen

What should we have done Jerry?

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

29 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Wendy,

I've often wondered what a farrier, working in Detroit in Oct 1908, might have thought as he watched all of those Model T's coming out of the factory.

Jerry Baumchen

"Who is going to fix all of those?"

It would mean a completely different set of skills & tools, but the basic mentality would be similar.

I have no clue how many farriers (people who take care of horse's hooves and shoes) ended up becoming car mechanics.
It would be interesting to find out.

[JerryBaumchen 1,365]

13 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

"Who is going to fix all of those?"

It would mean a completely different set of skills & tools, but the basic mentality would be similar.

I have no clue how many farriers (people who take care of horse's hooves and shoes) ended up becoming car mechanics.
It would be interesting to find out.

Hi Joe,

Given:  The T engine was known for its simplicity, reliability, and economy.

I think that a fair amount of them could have moved into Model T mechanics.  They were very simple engines:  Ford Model T engine - Wikipedia

I think it's a lot different today, where a 50-55 yr old person employed in manual labor, is hoping to move into the high tech world.

Jerry Baumchen

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

2 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Joe,

Given:  The T engine was known for its simplicity, reliability, and economy.

I think that a fair amount of them could have moved into Model T mechanics.  They were very simple engines:  Ford Model T engine - Wikipedia

I think it's a lot different today, where a 50-55 yr old person employed in manual labor, is hoping to move into the high tech world.

Jerry Baumchen

Hi Jerry,

I would think a farrier would look at the wheels & tires and think about repair of those.

Keep in mind that a 'mechanic' fixes a lot more than just the engine.

[brenthutch 444]

3 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Joe,

Given:  The T engine was known for its simplicity, reliability, and economy.

I think that a fair amount of them could have moved into Model T mechanics.  They were very simple engines:  Ford Model T engine - Wikipedia

I think it's a lot different today, where a 50-55 yr old person employed in manual labor, is hoping to move into the high tech world.

Jerry Baumchen

Could you please explain what manual labor job are going to be replaced by high tech?

[JerryBaumchen 1,365]

23 hours ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Let them eat cake?

I've seen it claimed that the income inequality in the US right now is very similar to that of France, right before the revolution.

I wouldn't mind seeing the Koch bros, the Waltons, Harlan Crow and a lot of others end up facing the guillotine.

Hi Joe,

One other option:  A soldier standing guard in the proceedings was ordered to take the Ceaușescus outside one by one and shoot them, but the Ceaușescus demanded to die together. The soldiers agreed to this and began to tie their hands behind their backs, which the Ceaușescus protested against, but were powerless to prevent.

 The Ceaușescus were executed by a group of soldiers: Captain Ionel Boeru, Sergeant-Major Georghin Octavian and Dorin-Marian Cîrlan,^[66] while reportedly hundreds of others also volunteered.

Nicolae Ceaușescu - Wikipedia

Jerry Baumchen

[brenthutch 444]

8 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Joe,

One other option:  A soldier standing guard in the proceedings was ordered to take the Ceaușescus outside one by one and shoot them, but the Ceaușescus demanded to die together. The soldiers agreed to this and began to tie their hands behind their backs, which the Ceaușescus protested against, but were powerless to prevent.

 The Ceaușescus were executed by a group of soldiers: Captain Ionel Boeru, Sergeant-Major Georghin Octavian and Dorin-Marian Cîrlan,^[66] while reportedly hundreds of others also volunteered.

Nicolae Ceaușescu - Wikipedia

Jerry Baumchen

Very touching, yet you still have yet to explain what manual labor jobs will be replaced by high tech in a meaningful way 

Edited September 26, 2023 by brenthutch

[lippy 918]

1 hour ago, brenthutch said:

Very touching, yet you still have yet to explain what manual labor jobs will be replaced by high tech in a meaningful way 

Look at some of the big-ag kit tag’s using AI for weeding and precision herbicide spray. How many fewer laborers are required due to that technology coming online. 
 

 

[billvon 2,997]

3 hours ago, brenthutch said:

It’s no more a mystery than what happened to those manual loom operators or check out clerks.  They moved on to other, and often better, vocations. 

Nope.  Lowest quintile incomes have, at best, not moved in the past 60 years or so, while the top quintile has more than doubled.

They're not moving on to better jobs.  They are taking the best job they can find in the shrinking list available.