Trade jobs are among the safest in terms of long term viability and compensation. We definitely need to be directing more folks to the trades. Automation will hit college educated folks harder than the trade educated, at least in the short to mid term.
It's shitting on the little people to expect them to work hard to move up? Are people forced to work a job that sucks? If the average CEO bonus goes to zero, the line workers aren't making more than a couple of hundred dollars more a year. There is no correlation.
sometimes you have to make those sort of decisions if you don't have the neccesary skills needed locally
You can't think it makes sense to make it about comparisons. How about contribution to stakeholder value?
Dealing with employees is probably the worst part of my job. I'd say it's the worst part of most people's job. It is also the largest component of my overhead. Honestly, the thought of going in and having androids that do everything exactly as I instruct them every time is a dream scenario. I've never really thought about it until now, but the quality of my life would skyrocket. I'm pretty loyal to the crew I have now, so I wouldn't fire and replace, but as they retire, I'd have to think long and hard about hiring more humans if there were another option. Additionally, I think as the newer generation, which is almost universally regarded to suck as employees, begins to comprise a larger percentage of the workforce you'll see more and more people fed up with dealing with them and looking for an alternative.
And it has been that way since day one. Assembly line work was the first to get automated for this very reason, and I imagine most businesses have a large chunk of their income go towards employee compensation (pay + benefits). Times, they are a-changin'. But when 50% of the jobs go bye-bye, who is going to buy the products? And what happens when even YOUR job as a doctor is taken by a robot (not in our life times, but I can see a computer being able to diagnose as well or better than a human at some point).
Automation is all about improving margins through increased efficiency and quality (typically). Certainly it could come sooner if margins are significantly impacted, but automation is going to happen regardless. I'm not opposed to automation at all and do not think it should be discouraged. It's the logical evolution of workforce. I just don't see this law as the catastrophe other seem to view it, rather as the long overdue update Norris mentioned. If these folks' jobs can be automated they will be at some point; we can still take care of them while they have the positions.
But most people in charge are reluctant to change if things are going smoothly. Not many want to make drastic changes unless there is some problem that needs to be fixed. Heck, I've heard the Industrial Revolution took way longer to happen because essentially the old guys in charge had to retire or die before big innovations could gain acceptance.
"Workers fault" huh? What it means is that this country increasingly doesn't need zero skilled workers or at least not well paid zero skilled workers. That's the systems fault or the people with no skills? This is the natural progression of any economy. Low skilled people in China are finding it harder to get these type of jobs too because their economy is similar to ours from 30 years ago.
Generate revenue for your company or make yourself indespensible in some other way and you will find out you have a lot of control and influence.
Fair point. I guess I'm just not sure I see this particular law as a game changer which would force the decision to automate now. It's an interesting time we live in concerning automation. Business process automation is all the rage in my world right now. I've been surprised at some of the work automated, but we're also finding several instances where automating is not (yet) cost-effective. Maybe I have a few years left after all.
