/biz/ - Business & Finance

People invoke the Industrial Revolution and say we have heard these fears before all the way back to the Luddites, that new jobs always appear. It is unknowable what the new jobs will be, as it is beyond human wisdom. Oftentimes the person who thinks that all will be okay is guilty of what I call constructive-institutionalism: Operating from a default stance that things will work-themselves-out. This is, to my mind, a disavowal of judgment and reality. History repeats itself until it doesn't.

Every innovation will bring with the new opportunities and some will be difficult to predict self-driving cars and trucks will bring with them a need for improved infrastructure and thus perhaps some construction jobs the demise of retail could make drone pilots more of a need over time the proliferation of data is already making data scientists a hot new job category. The problem is that the new jobs are almost certain to be in different places than existing ones and will be less numerous than the ones that disappear.

They will generally require higher levels of education than the displaced workers have, and it will be very unlikely for a displaced worker to move, identify the need, gain skills, and fill the new role. We can celebrate the 200 new robot supervisors in suburban California, and the 100 new logistics specialists in Memphis, and the 50 new web designers in Seattle and say "Hey, we didn't know we'd need these 350 college-educated people to manage robots that took thousands of jobs. Hooray!" Meanwhile there will be 50,000 unemployed retail employees who will be looking fruitlessly for opportunities in their shrinking communities.