Will automation decimate the world’s workforce?
There’s a lot of scary talk bouncing around, from tech blogs to published books like “Rise of the Machines” to presidential contender Andrew Yang.
Many commentators in the tech sphere hoping to downplay the coming disruption to the workforce point to some statistics that seem to indicate job losses won’t be anything near the 80% figure touted by some.
One of the most popular examples given is that of the bank tellers. When ATMs were introduced in the 1980s, it was predicted that tellers were doomed. Why would we need a bunch of tellers when you could get your money from a machine?
What happened, however, was that the number of tellers in each bank went from 22 to 13, which reduced branch operation costs so much that banks were able to focus on expansion and consumer relations. There ended up being more tellers in 2000 than there had been in 1980.
Well, that’s just great news for everyone, right? Automation allows for growth that will offset employment reductions!
But it’s not quite that simple. If you take into account that many industries have already used analog/digital efficiencies to reach market saturation, and that the overall population of the US increased by 100 million people (or just under 50%) over the same period, what’s going to happen as the population shrinks and the economy contracts?
Business leaders have an “endless growth” bias. They need to remain optimistic and keep the masses from rising up in a Luddite frenzy.
The reality is that a lot of jobs will be “innovaporized” by the coming automation wave. Yes, cobots and RPAs will play well with humans, but if you don’t need twenty people on a machine floor, why would you keep them there?