Decent article.... from CNBC and Walter Isaacson, past Chairman of CNN and Editor of Time.
NJ's head may explode. Stand back.
---------------------------------------
We now hear predictions from Latter Day Luddites that computers and
thinking machines are putting people out of work. It's true that
technology can be disruptive. It can eliminate some jobs, from weavers
to buggy-whip makers to checkout clerks to legal researchers. But the
Luddite Fallacy is based on a presumption that there is only a set
amount of goods and services people want. If technology permits those
things to be produced more efficiently, Luddites argue, there will be
less work for people to do. In reality, the adoption of technology leads
to an increase in productivity, cheaper goods, and more personal
expendable wealth. As the recent employment reports show, that in turn
leads to increased demand for a wider variety of goods and services and
thus more jobs.
If new technologies reduced the total number of
jobs, we'd all be out of work by now. But the opposite is the case. The
periods of technological advance have been the periods of the greatest
job growth. And the countries with the greatest adoption of technology,
such as the U.S., have witnessed the greatest growth in jobs and wages.
Last year, as whole new waves of robotic systems were introduced, the
U.S. had its best year for hiring in 15 years. It created 3,116,000 new
jobs, the highest number in any year since 1999. The gains were spread
across all sectors. This January alone, there were 46,000 new jobs in
retail trade, 39,000 in construction, 38,000 in health care, 35,000 in
food service, 33,000 in professional and technical roles, 26,000 in
financial services, and even 22,000 in manufacturing. The unemployment
rate hit a six-year low. New York City, the heart of technologies
disrupting everything from journalism to taxis, has created more private
sector jobs in the past five years than any five-year period for half a
century.
Even average hourly earnings are finally starting to rise - a sign of rising opportunities for lower-paid workers. Wal-Mart Stores
plans to boost its minimum pay for its U.S. employees to $10 an hour by
next year, 38 percent higher than the federal minimum wage. That
follows similar recent raises at Starbucks, Aetna, and the Gap.
Since technology displaces some workers, what is
causing overall employment to grow? Now as in each decade of the past
two centuries, technology has created new types of jobs and enabled new
forms of commerce.
The "App Economy" is one example. It began in 2008 when Steve Jobs yielded to the advice of his team at Apple
and decided to let outside developers create apps for the iPhone and
then the iPad. The global app economy for Apple and Android devices was
$100 billion last year, far surpassing the film industry. The Apple app
store alone created 627,000 jobs. This is an industry that did not exist
seven years ago.
Apps and other advances in technology have created
a "sharing economy" in which enterprising folks can rent out rooms on
Air BnB and provide rides on Uber and Lyft. Likewise, app stores and
online marketplaces such as eBay
have enabled the rise of the types of artisans and makers that existed
in the pre-industrial age. If you have a good recipe or can make a cool
product or service, it's now possible to find customers. If you create a
book or song, you now have ways to self-publish and distribute. If you
dream up a new specialty - Ethical hacker? Pet psychologist? Nutrition
coach? - you have a chance of finding takers. Technology even helps to
grow long-established local companies that make specialty products -
such as ones from my own home state of Louisiana like Dr. Tichenor's
toothpaste or Tabasco hot sauce or Zatarain's food spice - by enabling
them to find customers in every nook of the planet. More than 600,000
people nowadays earn a living by selling on eBay.
A more fundamental shift is that technology is
permitting the rise of "on-demand" or "on-tap" workers. Do you need a
housekeeper or handyman or a car repairman or air conditioning
specialist? Or do you have any of those skills and want to put them to
use? Technology now allows such transactions to occur on a peer-to-peer
basis, rather that through a company. It's a trend that reaching
professionals as well: there are apps and online services for lawyers,
doctors, accountants, software programmers, management consultants, and
almost any task you can imagine.
This represents, in some ways, a return to the way
the economy worked before the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago.
Until then, most work was done by individual tradesmen and artisans and
practitioners and professionals. But the Industrial Revolution led to
the rise of big manufacturing enterprises, industrial companies,
corporate entitites, and professional firms that helped organize the way
people worked. Shifting back to an economy based more on individual
initiative may be a burden to those who like the stability, security,
and nine-to-five structure of a firm. But it will be a boon for those
who are entrepreneurial, desire flexibility in their lives, want the
freedom to dabble in various endeavors, or are eager to break into the
job market. As The Economist recently reported: "Now technology makes
the idea of a 'firm' less necessary. That has some benefits for workers
and some drawbacks. But it doesn't mean fewer workers."
Technology can even help create more traditional
jobs. One of the greatest technological advances in the past decade has
been a physical rather than digital one: the development of fracking
techniques that permit new ways to extract oil and gas. That has led to a
boom in energy and manufacturing jobs. Likewise, new robotic technology
is causing some companies to move factories back from countries with
low-cost and low-skilled workers. Countries that embrace tech fastest
will win in job growth.
The benefits of technology will not happen
automatically. As in all previous eras of technological advance, it will
require smart policies, such as making health-care coverage more
portable and available to individuals. When the U.S. moved from an
agricultural to an industrial economy that required more knowledge, it
decided to make high school free and available to all citizens.
In that spirit, the shift to a knowledge-based economy has prompted
President Obama to propose making the first two years of college free
and universally available. Similarly, we must make sure that every kid
has access to broadband networks, computers, and summer internships that
develop 21st-century skills. Instead of fretting about the advance of
technology, we should focus on ways to to train people to be part of the
workforce of the future
NJ's head may explode. Stand back.
---------------------------------------
We now hear predictions from Latter Day Luddites that computers and
thinking machines are putting people out of work. It's true that
technology can be disruptive. It can eliminate some jobs, from weavers
to buggy-whip makers to checkout clerks to legal researchers. But the
Luddite Fallacy is based on a presumption that there is only a set
amount of goods and services people want. If technology permits those
things to be produced more efficiently, Luddites argue, there will be
less work for people to do. In reality, the adoption of technology leads
to an increase in productivity, cheaper goods, and more personal
expendable wealth. As the recent employment reports show, that in turn
leads to increased demand for a wider variety of goods and services and
thus more jobs.
If new technologies reduced the total number of
jobs, we'd all be out of work by now. But the opposite is the case. The
periods of technological advance have been the periods of the greatest
job growth. And the countries with the greatest adoption of technology,
such as the U.S., have witnessed the greatest growth in jobs and wages.
Last year, as whole new waves of robotic systems were introduced, the
U.S. had its best year for hiring in 15 years. It created 3,116,000 new
jobs, the highest number in any year since 1999. The gains were spread
across all sectors. This January alone, there were 46,000 new jobs in
retail trade, 39,000 in construction, 38,000 in health care, 35,000 in
food service, 33,000 in professional and technical roles, 26,000 in
financial services, and even 22,000 in manufacturing. The unemployment
rate hit a six-year low. New York City, the heart of technologies
disrupting everything from journalism to taxis, has created more private
sector jobs in the past five years than any five-year period for half a
century.
Even average hourly earnings are finally starting to rise - a sign of rising opportunities for lower-paid workers. Wal-Mart Stores
plans to boost its minimum pay for its U.S. employees to $10 an hour by
next year, 38 percent higher than the federal minimum wage. That
follows similar recent raises at Starbucks, Aetna, and the Gap.
Since technology displaces some workers, what is
causing overall employment to grow? Now as in each decade of the past
two centuries, technology has created new types of jobs and enabled new
forms of commerce.
The "App Economy" is one example. It began in 2008 when Steve Jobs yielded to the advice of his team at Apple
and decided to let outside developers create apps for the iPhone and
then the iPad. The global app economy for Apple and Android devices was
$100 billion last year, far surpassing the film industry. The Apple app
store alone created 627,000 jobs. This is an industry that did not exist
seven years ago.
Apps and other advances in technology have created
a "sharing economy" in which enterprising folks can rent out rooms on
Air BnB and provide rides on Uber and Lyft. Likewise, app stores and
online marketplaces such as eBay
have enabled the rise of the types of artisans and makers that existed
in the pre-industrial age. If you have a good recipe or can make a cool
product or service, it's now possible to find customers. If you create a
book or song, you now have ways to self-publish and distribute. If you
dream up a new specialty - Ethical hacker? Pet psychologist? Nutrition
coach? - you have a chance of finding takers. Technology even helps to
grow long-established local companies that make specialty products -
such as ones from my own home state of Louisiana like Dr. Tichenor's
toothpaste or Tabasco hot sauce or Zatarain's food spice - by enabling
them to find customers in every nook of the planet. More than 600,000
people nowadays earn a living by selling on eBay.
A more fundamental shift is that technology is
permitting the rise of "on-demand" or "on-tap" workers. Do you need a
housekeeper or handyman or a car repairman or air conditioning
specialist? Or do you have any of those skills and want to put them to
use? Technology now allows such transactions to occur on a peer-to-peer
basis, rather that through a company. It's a trend that reaching
professionals as well: there are apps and online services for lawyers,
doctors, accountants, software programmers, management consultants, and
almost any task you can imagine.
This represents, in some ways, a return to the way
the economy worked before the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago.
Until then, most work was done by individual tradesmen and artisans and
practitioners and professionals. But the Industrial Revolution led to
the rise of big manufacturing enterprises, industrial companies,
corporate entitites, and professional firms that helped organize the way
people worked. Shifting back to an economy based more on individual
initiative may be a burden to those who like the stability, security,
and nine-to-five structure of a firm. But it will be a boon for those
who are entrepreneurial, desire flexibility in their lives, want the
freedom to dabble in various endeavors, or are eager to break into the
job market. As The Economist recently reported: "Now technology makes
the idea of a 'firm' less necessary. That has some benefits for workers
and some drawbacks. But it doesn't mean fewer workers."
Technology can even help create more traditional
jobs. One of the greatest technological advances in the past decade has
been a physical rather than digital one: the development of fracking
techniques that permit new ways to extract oil and gas. That has led to a
boom in energy and manufacturing jobs. Likewise, new robotic technology
is causing some companies to move factories back from countries with
low-cost and low-skilled workers. Countries that embrace tech fastest
will win in job growth.
The benefits of technology will not happen
automatically. As in all previous eras of technological advance, it will
require smart policies, such as making health-care coverage more
portable and available to individuals. When the U.S. moved from an
agricultural to an industrial economy that required more knowledge, it
decided to make high school free and available to all citizens.
In that spirit, the shift to a knowledge-based economy has prompted
President Obama to propose making the first two years of college free
and universally available. Similarly, we must make sure that every kid
has access to broadband networks, computers, and summer internships that
develop 21st-century skills. Instead of fretting about the advance of
technology, we should focus on ways to to train people to be part of the
workforce of the future
