The Future of Work will be exploding with opportunity and imploding and dying at the same time

A paper by MIT’s David Autor and Utrecht University’s Anna Salomons determined that overall automation created more jobs than it destroys over 47 years of data from 28 industries in 19 countries. This will likely be the case in the future as well, but it will be tough for people to scramble for the new work. The new work will also likely pay somewhat less.

The future of work will see both faster growth and more rapid decline. Areas will be exploding with new opportunity or rapid implosion and job death.

A Brookings Institute study has found that from 1970-2007 automation has caused a net increase of 6% in employment in 19 OECD countries.

Protection for workers and jobs is likely to be short-term and mostly ineffective

There will be more automation in the future.

It would be good if there was an effective policy to address the imbalance. However, there has been limited effective social safety nets in the past.

Stronger social safety nets in European countries have often led to higher unemployment levels.

Policies that try to shield the citizens of a country have often resulted in weaker national economies.

Run Faster aka Hustle

There is a lot of talk about Universal Basic Income. This is a strategy of begging and/or demanding handouts.

It is fine to try to spend some time on this. However, it is best to assume this will fail, since it usually has failed.

You don’t have to run faster than the bear to get away. You just have to run faster than the guy next to you.

Teaching, nursing and other growth careers

An 84 page McKinsey report describes the future workforce of now to 2030 and the skills that will be in demand.

Everyone knows there are hot jobs and new up and coming areas. If you cannot get into the hot areas then at least get out of the cross-hairs of automation waves that will crush industries and companies within five to ten years. If you choose to stay in the cross-hairs then plan your finances to know that you are doing a temporary job and getting salary which will not last.

Growing occupations will be in tough to automate activities such as managers and those in unpredictable physical environments such as plumbers. There should still be increasing demand for teachers, nursing aides, and tech and other professionals.

the past will repeat or at least rhyme with the

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) was a historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution.

Overall things have gotten better and their will be more overall in the future. However, things being easy and fair are not part of the prediction.