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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Does Automation Take Jobs Away?
Organization: The Armory
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 12:45:36 GMT
Message-ID: <CtE8s2.K3B@armory.com>
References: <30jt34$6f6@magus.cs.utah.edu> <CtAsCn.I7x@apollo.hp.com> <30ma32$o3p@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> <30md20$lbe@handler.eng.sun.com>
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In article <30md20$lbe@handler.eng.sun.com>,
Chuck McManis <cmcmanis@Sun.COM> wrote:
>Sigh, here in the U.S. we have a bazillion civil service employees that
>spend their lives pondering such questions. Go to your local Gov't Printing
>Office and scan reports from the department of labor for the last 30 years.
>In particular check out the reports on "predicted job creation" which detail
>how the economy and complexity change the job market and where jobs are
>expected to be lost and created. Note the net number of jobs available
>continually increases, just the mix changes.
>
>If you want to be alarmist you might look not at automation of factories
>but automation of automobiles as a source of tremendous impact on current
>jobs. Today, many people with a real high school degree (high school =
>the first 12 years of education, after high school is college, and real
>in this context means a competency level in reading and mathematics) can
>work on cars with relatively simple tools. However microcomputers are rapidly
>becoming the "norm" in the control systems of cars. This change creates
>three distinct categories of auto mechanic:
>	a) Really simple ones that only know how to replace the entire
>	   computer control system module.
>	b) Factory ones who can tell you with authority that you computer
>	   module is as fault before they replace it.
>	c) Good ones who can burn new eproms for the factory module to make
>	   your car go 30% faster in the quarter mile.
>A lot of mechanics either have, or are, going out of business. Where as
>car 'hackers' are getting top dollar. 
>
>As an engineer,  maybe because I'm an engineer, I feel the winds of change
>all the time. A regular part of my day is to track changes and keep myself
>up to date and current. Otherwise I'll be out of a job once I'm "out of touch"
>with the current industry. Automation is an easy thing to point at as a
>"bad" thing since at least superfically it appears a robot has replaced 
>a human in some job. The fact of the matter is, jobs appear and disappear
>like electron holes in a doped semiconductor. Automation is but one, relatively
>benign, mechanism in this process.
>--
>--Chuck McManis	 All opinions in this message/article are
>FirstPerson Inc.        those of the author, who may or may not
>Internet: cmcmanis@firstperson.COM   be who you think it is.

----------------------------
You are right that the total number of jobs are increasing, but more
people are having to take on these "micro-jobs" which have replaced full
time wage with part time pittance and no benefits!!! AND the number of jobs
does NOT keep up with population!!! Just because something's increasing,
doesn't mean it's as good as the former number taken one at a time, or that
another factor, the unemployed are also increasing and faster!!! Most unemployed
are hidden, because they only take the unemployment compensation claims,
not the people who are now using/selling cocaine and shooting people!!!
They build more and more prisons. They build fewer and fewer schools.
They have a larger and larger non-working population!!! You figure it out!
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

