The Long-Term Jobs
Killer Is Not China
Excerpt: Globalization is clearly responsible for some of
the job losses, particularly trade with China during the 2000s, which led
to the rapid loss of 2 million to 2.4 million net jobs, according to research by economists
including Daron
Acemoglu and David
Autor of M.I.T. People who work in parts of the country most affected
by imports generally have greater unemployment and reduced income for the rest
of their lives, Mr. Autor found in a paper published in
January. Still, over time, automation has had a far bigger effect than
globalization, and would have eventually eliminated those jobs anyway, he said
in an interview. “Some of it is globalization, but a lot of it is we require
many fewer workers to do the same amount of work,” he said. “Workers are
basically supervisors of machines.” When Greg Hayes, the chief executive of
United Technologies, agreed to invest $16 million in one of its Carrier
factories as part of a Trump deal to keep some jobs in Indiana
instead of moving them to Mexico ,
he said the money would go toward automation.
Robots want half of
your jobs. That’s $16 trillion in worldwide wages. Can’t blame China
Excerpt: Employers could feasibly swap out machines, using
existing technology, for humans in 50 percent of today’s jobs, says a new
McKinsey report.
That’s not just low-paying work but plenty of white-collar
employment as well, and that works out to $16 trillion in wages worldwide and
$2.7 trillion in the U.S.
RPT-U.S. investors
see more automation, not jobs, under Trump administration
Excerpt: Jan 19 When U.S. President-elect Donald Trump
criticized United Technologies Corp's Carrier unit in November for its plan to
move some 800 jobs to Mexico, the parent-company made a swift decision to keep
the factory in Indiana.
Yet, the move did not translate into saving jobs. Instead,
the company decided it would move toward automation as a way to cut costs. "We're
going to make up $16 million investment in that factory in Indianapolis to automate, to drive the cost
down so that we can continue to be competitive," chief executive Greg
Hayes said on CNBC last month. "What that ultimately means is there will
be fewer jobs." ... Declining costs of technology are expected to
accelerate the growth of robotic manufacturing. Some 80 percent of companies
that plan to cut jobs in the next year expect to partially replace workers with
automation, according to a survey of chief executives by PwC released Monday.
Editor's Letter, The Week magazine. Theunis Bates
Excerpt: Some
200 years on, advances in automation continue to cause political and social
upheaval. President Trump routinely blames the disappearance of U.S. manufacturing jobs on bad trade deals and
cut-rate competition from China
and Mexico —attacks
that have struck a chord with Rust Belt voters. But that populist rage should
really be directed at the robots (see Technology). A recent study found that 85 percent of manufacturing job
losses from 2000 to 2010 were caused by automation, not outsourcing. American
firms have been steadily cutting employees and replacing them with machines
that are cheaper (they don’t need benefits) and more efficient (they don’t take
vacations). U.S.
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