The idea that jobs will ultimately be replaced with the notion of automation is a primitive one, making us wonder if we are no different than the 19th century textile workers, known as Luddites, who feared being replaced by the spinning frames and power looms introduced by the Industrial Revolution. Nowadays, if you go to any Walmart you’ll see self-serve check-out stations doing the job of cashiers, but you don’t see cashiers complaining because these are boring menial jobs that we would much rather not do. With regards to the desirable jobs that are in risk of being automated, I’ll talk about the connection of continuous learning to a developing trend of what it really means to have a job. Furthermore, we will continue to see that new technologies will bring about a phase shift in lower level jobs, but that new, high-skill requirement jobs will be created in replacement.
The Luddites’ job loss was mostly an outcome of their lack of adaptive and continuous learning skills that would have given them value in the labour market at that time. For example, there were jobs developed to maintain, create, and operate these new machines. We should learn from their mistakes, and take the alternate approach today. Rather than complaining about the loss of lower-end jobs, we should embrace change and the notion of continuous learning. Continuous learning would bring about a new way of thinking, to replace the promise “If you get that degree you will be guaranteed a job,” which was assured of Generation X. For example, Alberta isn’t doing so well these days. These workers’ livelihoods were solely based on a minimum number of skills required through some post-graduate program, and since they didn’t seek to further enhance their skills, they are now faced with the choice of seeking other lower skilled jobs or learning new skills and acquiring a jobs with more educational background. If you look back over the last half century, you’ll see not many people were pursuing any form of post-secondary education. However, there is now a larger percentage of our population attending university and even pursuing Master’s degrees just to stay competitive in the job market. A continuum in education makes it possible for a person to be current with the job market and not be swallowed up by the monopoly which technology has on low skilled jobs these days.
You might disagree with the idea of continuous learning since you were sold on the promise that your parents told you, but this promise no longer holds. Technology is evolving rapidly according to Moore’s Law, which predicts a doubling of the number of transistors on an integrated chip approximately every two years. Technological advancement won’t wait on you. It has become more than just a tool in our lives which we can’t live without: it has become a driving force of innovation, creation, and jobs. Some elementary school have even gone so far to implement coding courses for younger kids; they anticipate that knowing how to code will become as important as knowing English. Some businesses like Codecademy have even taken advantage of this opportunity, offering courses in programming with their pro account going for $60 a month, which is a lot cheaper than any engineering course. If you look on Jobmine you won’t see a shortage of jobs demanding coding skills. Why? Because working as a developer requires continuous learning: you don’t stop simply because you get older.
Studies have been done by Deloitte show that over the last 144 years technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, eliminating dull, repetitive, and dangerous jobs which humans would much rather not do. This brought about mass production of goods and services, lowering the price of essentials and raising our disposable incomes with the creation of new jobs and increased demand. In the UK, 35% of jobs are at risk of being lost to automation in the next ten to twenty years, but it has been shown that technology replacing a human worker will actually produce a rise in employment overall. The Deloitte report stated 800,000 lower skilled jobs had been lost to automation, only to be replaced by roughly 35 million higher skilled jobs. The new jobs paid on average £10,000 more than the jobs lost, resulting in a £140 billion net boost for Britain’s economy. Overall, technology has reduced the demand for jobs involving physical labour or dull repetitive strain, and replaced them with more knowledge-intensive jobs that pay more.
In conclusion, the loss of jobs is simply a shift towards a future of continuous learning, where we can truly call ourselves “homo sapiens” (the wise ones) like we claim we are. We see evidence of this if we look back in time, and are still seeing this continuous cycle of technology which eliminates less knowledge-intensive jobs. As a result of this, people are studying more to fill in the newer highly skilled jobs. I’m not saying to go learn coding (even though it won’t hurt); my main purpose is just to show we have to re-evaluate the way we think about what it means to have a job so that we won’t be at risk of having that job replaced by technology. Some people decided that there is an age limit on learning, which is not at all true: older people remember the news and learn plenty of other things without knowing they still have the ability to learn. So don’t stop learning: I mean, when is the last time you said “I regret learning that”?
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