Pain. Sweat. Boredom. That’s what I remember most about
working in the Northwest a lifetime ago. In the 60’s I pulled lumber, veneer
and railroad ties off a fast moving “green chain” in many mills. Each shift was
always a dull repetition as the last and typically left me with an aching back
and sweaty brow. But the money was
pretty good, especially in union shops. Nor
did one have to worry about education requirements as a high school diploma
wasn’t required. Loggers made more money,
but the occupation was routinely rated as one of the most dangerous in the
country. In hundreds of towns like Morton, Packwood and Roseburg, timber was
king. Lumber was in demand for a rapidly growing America and the accompanying rural
lifestyle appealed to many families.
Many urban areas had similar, well paying, blue collar jobs
for men and women who toiled to manufacture goods like cars, textiles, steel
and electronics for the whole world. So, as the saying went, “there’s a chicken
in every pot and a car in every garage”.
No more. Since those halcyon days, mill towns gradually lost
access to forests because of species and waterway protections as well as over
cutting. Globalization caused thousands of
manufacturers to close their doors.
What remains is The Rust Belt (a region
of the upper Northeastern US, the Great lakes, and the Midwest states). The US Bureau of Labor has reported that
“since 1970, manufacturing jobs as a percentage of total employment have
declined from a quarter of payrolls to less than 10 per cent.”
Further, wages for the middle class have remained flat for
30 years. So it should be no surprise that, millions of Americans are mad as
hell. 2016 Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are trying
to harness that anger. Trump points to
the loss of US jobs to immigrants and “really bad” trade agreements. Sanders reserves his anger for Wall Street,
the “Billionaire Class” and student loan debt. And just about everyone rates the
dysfunctional members of congress as lower than, um, cockroaches.
There is some merit to all those opinions, but instead of
seeking a nostalgic return to old jobs that were lost or trying to redistribute
the treasure accumulated by those greedy billionaires, perhaps it is time to
consider just what kind of jobs will exist in the future.
This writer thinks that the types of jobs in the future will
be determined not by political will alone. Jobs will be radically different as
will the way we live our lives. The source of these changes has been labeled
with names like E Commerce, The Digital Age and The Gig Economy. The names all
point to an age in which technology will transform the world as much as The
Industrial Revolution did in the 20th century. In my humble opinion, those angry voters
looking for a rebound in manufacturing jobs are set to be keenly disappointed
because those jobs will not be replaced in the US and probably not overseas
either. Instead, manufacturing will rely on multiple locations where the
technology and talented people exist.
Products will be produced with contributions from many points on the
globe.
White collar jobs are affected also. Already robotics and new digital technology
have taken over jobs like on-line marketers, Anesthesiologists, Diagnosticians
and Surgeons according to a year-old report by Fortune magazine. Financial consultants are being replaced by
ever more powerful algorithms which allows computers to buy and sell stocks and
commodities almost instantly.
Two years ago, research by the University of Oxford estimated
that 47% of total US jobs could be automated and taken over by computer by
2033. According to Boston Consulting, “By 2025 the share of tasks performed by
robots will rise from a global average of around 10 per cent to about 25
percent across all manufacturing industries.”
Manufacturing technology is also being almost magically transformed
by 3D printing. 3D has evolved from making small items (mostly plastic) layer by
layer within the confines of an enclosed box to newer external systems,
allowing construction of buildings and homes. In fact, my son in law, an Amsterdam based graphics designer, recently told me that efforts are to begin soon in The Netherlands to build a bridge of
steel using the new 3D system. On a smaller scale, but equally impressive was a video posted on You Tube revealing that on January 1, 2016 a 3D printer enabled the successful
transplant of a new kidney for a toddler.
The rapid emergence of a new, on-demand economy matches
freelance workers to needed services such as drivers (Uber), cleaning supplies
(Handy) and food (Instacart). Axiom will
provide a lawyer. Click on Medicast’s site and a doctor will be at your door
“within 2 hours”. Elance-oDesk brags
that they have “9.3m workers for hire with 3.7m companies.”
The
online sharing economy is also emerging rapidly. The earliest example of this, carpooling, was (and is) a way to share the cost of travel and use an auto which sits usually
sits idle most of the time. This peer to peer, excess capacity model goods is
being applied to houses, apartments, clothing, computers, tools and toys, to
mention a few. It’s a new way of doing business by using the new technologies
like GPS, cloud data storage and social media. Price Waterhouse Coopers, an accounting firm, has
reported that “the peer to peer story is one of stellar growth…reaching about
15 billion in 2014 and on track to reach $335 billion by 2025.” In my opinion, corporations will soon join in. The excess capacity would probably work well with car rental agencies and with hotels who could save money by allowing individual franchises to own the property.
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This world of E Commerce will transform the way we work. Industries like travel, tourism,
transportation and equipment for hire will have to evolve to survive. Individual jobs such as seamstresses,
translators, sports writers, medical transcriptionists and (gasp!) journalists
are already being replaced.
Of course, many workers are already familiar with
working outside of the traditional 40-hour work week in a corporate cubicle. A growing number of folks are engaged in work
anytime and anyplace in the world. This always available concept provides more flexibility
but whether this is a good idea or not depends on who you talk to. No doubt
many enjoy this new found freedom. However, many friends engaged in these
positions tell me they are probably often working more than 40 hours a week,
apparently because time considerations are often secondary to the successful completion
of tasks in determining compensation.
More than likely, jobs in the future will be less
secure and less stable than they were. Clearly, the labor environment of the late 20th century is dying.
People will often have to stitch together many unrelated jobs. That is a scary concept for some, especially
folks in their 50’s who must once again retrain themselves for a changing
world. Younger folks, who learned to play on a computer as a toddler, will
probably find it easier to embrace jobless working. I believe that they will
also create lives that still reflect our long held values. Americans have always risen to a challenge
with equal amounts of grit and laughter. We will do so again.
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