9 Dying Occupations: Thanks To Technology

By on October 8, 2011 in News 20

WatchMichael B. Sauter writes on AOL:

Since textile workers in England were replaced by mechanized looms in the 19th century new technologies have been continuously taking the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of laborers. In the 20th century — the age of machinery, robotics, and computers — the United States has seen the loss of millions of factory jobs. Now, in the era of the Internet and further automation, a new generation of full-time workers is on the verge of losing their positions to technology. 24/7 Wall Street used information provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to identify the jobs that will lose the largest percentage of their current positions over the next decade.

Many jobs are in industries where technological advancement has already caused major reductions in the workforce. Now, further contraction is expected in those same industries as workers who were trained to oversee the machines are themselves replaced by new machines and software that manage the old machines. For example, more than 50,000 postal workers formerly assigned to oversee the mail sorting machines will lose their jobs as newer automated machines are implemented …

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  • Wanooski

    Efficiency and the profit motive, good for production, bad for just about everything else.

  • Nunzio X

    However, there is a growth industry:

    Wiper / licker of the assholes of the mega-rich. Expect a 90% increase in these jobs in the next five years.

  • Mr Willow

    Why do people always forget about this? 

    Half the reason there is a job crisis is because job positions are continuously being filled by machines and computers—the other half being the ‘job creators’ don’t want to pay salaries and workers benefits, so they won’t hire. It isn’t a bunch of lazy people who want ‘the government’ to take care of them.

    I think it would be more beneficial to discuss a move to a post-jobs era (or discuss reducing automation in all forms of industry and production). Sadly, I don’t think that will happen.

  • Anonymous

    Won’t someone please think of the buggy drivers and coopers???

  • http://www.ContraControl.com/ Zenc

    The coopers especially.

    Can’t make Bourbon Whiskey without new fired oak barrels.

  • iPINCH

    hopefully masturbating is one of them. Oh how i long for a robot lover <3

  • iPINCH

    hopefully masturbating is one of them. Oh how i long for a robot lover <3

  • Zero

    12 billion years of evolution and still not enough jobs. Hmmm, none of the other animals have jobs either. Maybe their is another point to life. Maybe their is another way. As far as I know, nobody has a monopoly on thought.

  • NarwhalNecropsy

    I honestly can’t see watchmaking dying out. Decreasing, sure, but not dying. I personally know a watch maker, only the best ones keep their jobs, but they are always in high demand. There is always some rich guy who needs his $37,000 Rolex repaired, and the money you can make doing so can be quite substantial.

  • Bunnyofthekungfu

    See, I expected to see AOL Writer on the list. . . 

  • Null

    But then you have to have people to operate, create, program, maintain and distribute (etc.) this technology. The introduction of more technology means the introduction of more people to do the aforementioned. The lesson here is to go to college and get a specialized occupation, preferably one dealing with machines;  technology is not going anywhere. Deal with it.

  • E.B. Wolf

    “As far as I know, nobody has a monopoly on thought.”

    Maybe not quite yet, but they have R and D working on it.

  • Wanooski

    Except the paradigm pushes for less and less people in the loop, idiot, that’s the point.

  • Wanooski

    how exactly do you figure 12 billion years of evolution? Are you assuming panspermia theory?

  • Mr Willow

    I do not entirely resent the introduction of technology to the workplace. It reduces the workload of people who are overworked otherwise. It allows crops to be harvested without people developing bent spines and skin cancer by the time they’re thirty. It does away with the prospect of doing some soul-crushing menial job all day (like putting caps on new toothpaste tubes)—which does not mean that menial jobs don’t still exist, this is for the sake of example—and it allows production to be hastier and more accurate in terms of actual manufacture and the transport of some manufacture. 

    What really upsets me is that for the past year or so, we’ve had politicians screaming their heads off about “Where’s the jobs!” and what they don’t realise—or don’t want to admit—is that with a growing population (thank you baby boomers) and an increase of automation—not to mention the fact that most of our manufacturing jobs exist in China, India, or the Philippines (among other places)—is that there are simply more people than there are jobs to fill. And with the rate at which things are moving, and a further emphasis on automation—along with the baby boomer generation’s kids having kids, who are also having kids (you see where I’m going with population growth)—the number of jobs will only decrease. 

    So, either we begin to remove machines from the workplace—each one probably does the work of ten or fifteen people, thereby putting said number of people back to work instantly—or we begin to look at what people can do with all of the spare time they will have, and discuss methods by which they can still afford a house, car, healthcare, etc. Both paths may not be taken.

  • Anonymous

    On the contrary, resources (rare earth minerals, gold, platinum, quartz, diamond, tin and oil) used to produce said technology, are demonstrably finite and extracting them not only requires tremendous resources (again on a finite scale), but oftentimes requires more energy to extract than the energy aquired from the resource itself (tar sands are a great example). While technology may not being going “anywhere” the resources and energy used to produce that tech- certainly has a limited lifespan if we want to continue living on a living planet.

  • Zero

    I just should have said “billions”, I knew someone would be a stickler. Like anybody knows how old the universe is anyway.

  • Intunity20

    As Joe and Graham discuss in Joe’s podcast, consciousness could just as easily chose machines as it has humans. Why must the machine be organic? machines are already far superior to humans, its only a matter of time before we the worker bees become the food for machines as per the matrix. We humans have been collecting experiences and committing them to the web since its inception. everything we know we’ve given to them. why do they need us anymore? all we do is wreck the joint. computers do far less damage to the environment. we’ve given them our jobs, our money, our attention, without them we’re lost. as the bible says (no i’m not religious) the meek shall inherit the earth. could that be cos they’re not totally dependent on machines. 2012 could be the dead line for us. could be when machines go on strike and wipe out the west or it could be when consciousness leaves us and we’re left unconscious and die soon after. or it could be the rise of the machines. they become our masters, or we become their energy source. there is no way to change our course of destruction so enjoy it while you can people. make your peace with this life for it will all be gone soon. 

  • Wanooski

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT13q5BoZn0
    Burn the cities, cut the power, some day, we’ll be free.

  • http://www.aha-soft.com/stock-icons/high-resolution-app-tab-bar-icons.htm?ref=ch Aha Soft

    It
    would be great if you give me that watch! I get jealous with, have not watch
    for now. Now that we have a job crisis, people must know how to make business
    like what Steve Job’s did, but if all of us now have our own business, what
    would be the sense of money?