“The automation revolution is here and millions of human workers could be replaced by machines over the next decade. Most of us will adapt or find new positions, say the experts,” Tristan Greene writes for TNW. “But new research indicates the most vulnerable segment of the human workforce might be entry-level workers, such as teens seeking summer jobs. Flipping burgers might not be an option for the kids of tomorrow.”
“The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently conducted a study to determine what effect automation will have on the global human workforce,” Greene writes. “Researchers Ljubica Nedelkoska and Glenda Quintini, who conducted the study, found that the youth workforce was particularly vulnerable to being entirely replaced by machines.”
“Unfortunately for those wishing to enter the workforce through entry-level, low-skill positions the competition is stiff. Robots are typically better suited for tasks that require little creativity or problem solving — and they’re much cheaper to employ in most cases,” Greene writes. “Young people may be better suited to learning new things, but without a place to develop and practice those skills we’re going to have to come up with a new approach to developing young adults in the workforce.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yup.
Learn to Code. It’s much more lucrative than flipping burgers and frying fries.
Those type of jobs generally cost more than they are worth as they simply don’t pay enough to allow people to live independently. They’ll soon be replaced by robots anyway… They don’t sleep, they don’t strike or make demands, they don’t jump off buildings or die in dust fires, most of them don’t even need the lights on. They just make what you program them to make, the same way every time, with quality control that no human line can ever match. — MacDailyNews, June 9, 2016
sooooo thanks SEIU on that fight for $15…..as the money goes up the cost of Automation makes sense. Nevermind sick-outs, poor work habits, or maternity leave…
A lot of kids aren’t working at McJobs. In fact, they’re occupied mostly by adults Hispanic or African Americans.
Another issue is how these workers are demanding $15 an hour for flipping burgers. Companies know once they hit $15, the next target is $20. As a result, companies are pushing faster into automation and there will be a lot less workers flipping burgers.
All fast food companies are exploring automation to reduce their work force. It’s only a matter of time.
People like you believe the worker and the consumer are two different things. One having nothing to do with the other.Robots are not consumers. Your worker is the consumer. That’s why the US economy has been shedding jobs and closing retail stores for the last ten years.
I’m totally aware of that. Workers get paid, they spend money to keep the economy going. Everyone knows that.
Reality is, the world is changing by the day. There are no typesetters any more, no switch operators, less travel agents, almost no fax machines, fewer bank tellers, taxi drivers, and the list goes on. People have to adapt to this change to have a career. This usually means having an education so they end up at a disappearing McJob.
So we fist will loose the low paying job that kids need to save for an education, we will then loose the jobs that require an education that the kids can’t afford.
In the end there will be the super rich, athletes and performers, Government, security forces and police to protect the few that fit into those categories and finally the 80% of people that fall in to the group we call the huddled masses that have nothing and have to fight to get a few crumbs to eat.
But until the majority are actually affected they will continue to say screw them they should get better jobs, or they should leant to code. Not everyone can code and the more people that there are that can code the lower the wage for those doing a job that has to many workers.
Not really. They could try what is missing in this PC, gimme everything even though I don’t want to work for it. It’s called HARD WORK.
If you WORK HARD and want it bad enough, you’ll get it. But yes, you do have to work, and stop leaning on the democrats to get your $15 an hour.
There are eight people and four jobs. If everyone works twice as hard what happens? There will be eight people and two jobs. May your co-workers work twice as hard Trondude.
I wouldn’t select software engineering (coding) as the industry for your example. There is about 1% current unemployment and about 24% annual growth expected. It will be quite a while before the wages begin to lower, and with an average wage over $100K, it will certainly not drop to where it’s comparable to fast food salaries.
But again Coding is a skill that not everyone is suited for. If everyone could code then that 1% would be filled quickly and the wage would fall. I’m guessing there are lots of people that have taken programming courses, but not all of them are skilled or employable.
1% is the current unemployment rate, which is 4x better than the national average, implying the industry is nowhere close to being filled. And with 24% growth expected annually, that will take a lot more programmers every year. The U.S. is importing programmers from around the world and we still have a 1% unemployment stat. If you think that will somehow be filled quickly, you’re not understanding statistics.
We said that in IT in general 15 years ago. Now, many of us are replaced by cheap bodies in India, Costa Rica, etc.
We thought we had it made, and we DO have skills. Problem is, if you’re not young and cool, forget that interview now. And if you’re just talented, you’ll get your job sent overseas to the cheap bodies. IT isn’t even the answer unless maybe you’re genius and a cool hipster…
That movie is called Solyent Green…or Rollerball…either would apply….
Ha, ha, ha! You think teens have jobs? That’s a good one. So is the notion of a robot apocalypse. I don’t know if anyone else is actually following these stories, but thus far, automation has primarily only touched industries that were already automated to a large degree and floundered in the rest, the vision of kiosks hasn’t exactly had stellar results. This is all speculative nonsense.
This is the democrats fault. Actually, they did everybody a favor. I’d rather deal with a robot or kiosk at fast food places anyways. They will probably do a much better job anyways.
Looks like the democrats plan has backfired. I mean how did they not see this coming. When you try to force a company that hires unskilled workers to pay them high paying wages what do you think is going to happen? Maybe if the unskilled adults that work at these places gave the jobs back to teenagers who might not boeotch and complain about a job that is meant to be temporary this wouldn’t be an issue.
Oh well problem solved, now the democrats can argue for higher unemployment checks. No worries, we the middle class will take the hit as usual.
Well, I used to work at the arm band factory. Then, got a job making buggy whips. Progress they said. Haven’t been able to find a job since. Of course you’d think I’m old enough to retire by now…
Thank you “living wage” and the flood of illegals.
Just remember the minimum wage for overpriced workers is 0.00
The fight for a living wage has nothing to do with automation taking away jobs. Neither does the so-called “flood” of illegals. Automation will take away jobs when the technology is ready, and it’s been getting ready for 50 years.
Auto assembly lines don’t look like they did 50 years ago, or even 25 years ago — robots weld faster and better than workers ever did.
In 20 years, long-haul truckers will be a thing of the past, as autonomous trucks make much more economic sense than self-driving SUVs.
As more and more wealth is created by fewer and fewer workers, the world will almost certainly come around to the concept of Universal Basic Income: guaranteeing every resident a minimum wage, whether they work or not.
Small-scale efforts at a universal basic income are currently underway in Finland, The Netherlands, Kenya, Canada and the US (per CNBC). I imagine the United States will be one of the LAST nations to fall in line — because hedge fund guys deserve to skim billions out of the financial markets, but teachers should be grateful they make $25G a year, right?
Reinstate the Draf, proablem solved
They can always get jobs mining coal.
Put them in the military. We’ll need them for the war against the gun-owners.
Maybe I’m joking. Maybe I’m not.
The military is the ultimate form of socialism. Just saying
It’s the kind of Socialism that is wrapped in patriotism and Capitalism so is impermiable to reform. The only way it can be weakened is when it rots on its own, consumes itself in some way.
Sure, invest in robots more and more; in humans less and less. Geez.
Hey, robots are not god consmers except the very limited number perishables that are built in. And try convincing a machine to buy chips and Pepsi and clothes.
So, really, I see this comprehensive trend toward favoring robots as the wealthy waging class warfare against workers. It’s class warfare done by the weathy’s proxy army of robots programmed to steal jobs.
No, not all teen jobs. But automatic junk food foisting is on the way. It doesn’t take an AI to take an order, make it, serve it and take your money.
Meanwhile, as we already know, competent customer relations cannot be automated. That never stops clowns from trying! But it’s always a fail.
There are also far less automatic and more human centric teen jobs that will never be replaceable.
Am I the only one who read the headline and imagined terminator robots going back in time to kill teenage Steve Jobs?