The impact of technology on the labor market.

As usual, I start apologizing for my bad English. Im not a native speaker. And I still think is polite to apologize when you abuse someone else's native language.

When I try to explain people which kind of job I do, and what it means to work into "Emerging Technologies"the most common topic which comes out is "so you destroy jobs". The reason I usually don't care of this kind of remark is very easy. When innovation was destroying jobs in the pure "working class", and workers were complaining, nobody had a minute of hesitation. I don't remember people - other than  some moronic vetero-communist  aka "luddist" - saying "stop this". Everyone was told that "if a machine can do your job, is time to get a better job". "evolve". "move". "self-instruct", and so on.

Why now is different? Well, is different because this time innovation is not hitting anymore the "working class", the "makers" (which "Industry 4.0" will put back  into the game)  : this time innovation is hitting the so call "middle class", with a particular attention about "management".

Why management is the target this time? Of course, because middle management is VERY expensive, and very little achieving. The remaining workforce today is very very productive, since it works together with machines, and since it evolved. The people which didn't evolved are all "managers".

If are a "maker" and you ask yourself what changed in the tools/technologies you use for your work , say in the last 10 years, you will find lot of changes. Mostly changes related to new technologies/material/tools which became cheaper. If you ask a manager what changed in their tools/technologies in the last 10 years,  they will answer you that they have a better laptop, they went from Office X to Office Y, they have a different brand of Smartphone, and a little more. 

Middle management, AKA "most of middle class" is utterly expensive, terribly performing, and most of time... useless.

The mean average middle manager spends ~60% of its time in doing "reporting". This means creating slides or tables in order to describe their jobs, achievements, together with the achievements of their units. Now, imagine there is somewhere a software which can do this, "auto-magically": is not like ALL the managers are going home. Since just 60% of their time is spent in reporting, more or less 60% of them will go home. 

The same happens to any work is now considered "middle class": I'm not saying that all of them will disappear. I am just saying if 50% of their time is spent in a way a machine can achieve the same, 50% of them will lose their jobs. 

But... everybody knows this happens, even people expects this happens like "you are fired, we have a machine doing your job". Here is the error. Most of times, the long arm of the market is just invisible. I want to do an example. Here is the Gartner's curve about 2015. 

Let's go back at the beginning of the 2015, and take as example the new technologies marked "2 to 5 years", which are very close to the "plateau of productivity". They are:

• Enterprise 3D printing
• Gesture control.
• Autonomous field vehicles
• Cryptocurrency exchange.

Which predictions could I make out of this? 

Well, the most evident is "Autonomous field vehicles". The impact of this is devastating, just because farming is spending jobs mostly in driving vehicles on the field. Even if this is not very expensive, this is a lot of FTE (Full Time Equivalent = the amount of 8 hours day worked ). The fact this technology is coming is not causing people being told "we don't need you, our tractors are autonomous now". No. 

It causes this kind of farms:

to enter the market with devastating low prices. They have money to invest, they see savings to come, they do it. So, after you see the Gartner's curve in 2015, it is easy to predict that prices of raw food would go down, and the small farms will start to starve and close. 

So you don't see people being fired by the farmer, because of the new autonomous tractor: you see the whole farm in default, because prices are too low. Like, by example, <10€cent per liter of milk.

Lesson: when a technology is disruptive, it doesn't impacts your life making you fired by your boss. It impacts you because your company disappears. Is not that you are fired. Is that your company is in default.

So we are not "killing jobs": we are killing obsolete companies. 

The same is for "gesture control": if you think this is just video games, just check how many people works with "security", and think to some camera which can read the gesture, ant call the police/headquarter when someone is committing a crime. So it's easy to predict private surveillance and on-site security will drop dramatically in prices. Gesture control is not only about games: when you can read gestures, you can do many things.

This will not happen because you get told "now we have the automatic camera which calls the emergency team", what happens is that your company is dropped out of the market because of the lower prices from the competition:  first companies will try to cut any costs, then to resize, but, at the end, resistance is futile.

Now, let's take the Gartner's curve, and check items marked as "5 to 10 years". Terrific, isn't it?

Some of them are very close to the plateau of productivity, and we know already some of them (like augmented reality: is not really mainstream, but "Pokemon Go" hit the market somehow) : the crazy thing of the Gartner's curve is that often development is FASTER than predicted, and never slower.

If I look at those technologies, I see clearly why Trump has little chance to bring "good" jobs to the USA, by example. Almost ALL the jobs he has in mind are going to die.

Now it comes the issue: after of this, which kind of job I consider "successful"? Well, when things are changing and lot of people needs new jobs because of technologies, I would bet on "education". If an entire city has issues because the local mines are closing, what you need is what Germany did in the RUHR area: from coal/steel to information technology and telco. Buuuuttt... what happened to workers? 

Well, they had to learn: which means, they needed schools, able to teach them the new jobs and new opportunities. They needed new skills. So the most winning job in the next future is... the teacher of new jobs. 

IT certifications, internship training:  if technology makes obsolete the main industry in your area, the best chance you have is to be a teacher of technology. If not, what happens is still that people will adapt to technologies, but they will adapt to the easier ones: Über and AirBnB , by example.

The person which was a worker before and now is a Über driver is moving to the old job to a new , technology oriented, job: the issue is that, having no chance of a better education, the only tech-jobs they could achieve were this ones.

Is there a way to stop this? Well, no. As I said, is not about countries adopting or not a technology and fire their own people. Experience shows companies like to reassign old-time workers. The problem is when your competitor is adopting a technology. Like for farming: now prices are dropping dramatically, you may have done "protectionism" as much you liked, with milk at ~6€c a liter, or less, nobody will buy your milk. And, when people can grow food right inside cities, who needs farmers? ( http://www.usa.lighting.philips.com/products/horticulture/press-releases/growwise-center.html )

In the next 10 years, a lot  of little and middle companies will default. You must expect it. And a lot of people will lose their jobs for it. Of course, the economy will react :

• Lot of Über-like jobs. They are easy for people, because of little training.
• Low cost everything will enable people to live with the lower income.

So here is the answer: are you destroying jobs? Well, no. Me , and people like me, are destroying companies. Banks, by example, are the next of our targets. Look in the Gartner's curve where "cryptocurrencies" is  and you can see the point. Right this year the first blockchains (mostly the IBM one) are being deployed for exchange. From here to 10 years , banks are going to have a load of issues. Consider 90% of their workforce gone.

But, we know that all that people will change lifestyle. On one side  they make money of what they have (AirBnB for housing, Über for cars, and so on),  on the other side "free" , "freemium" and "low cost" will enable them to live with a smaller income.

Plus, there is a huuuuuge opportunity: education. A mass of people which wants to keep a high income is a mass of people looking for training. They want to be able to enter the labor market again. 

And this will be the next big thing: e-learning, IT certification, post-graduate training.

So we are destroying jobs, plus creating new ones. 

Sorry for Trump supporters: maybe some job will come back in the USA, unfortunately it will NOT be kinda job you can do, unless you do not educate/train yourself.

If you will not succeed at this, the only one to blame is yourself.