Robots Will Replace 5 Million Workers By 2020: Report

[IDemo]

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Disruptive labor market changes, including the rise of robots and artificial intelligence, will result in a net loss of 5.1 million jobs over the next five years in 15 leading countries, according to an analysis published in Davos on Monday.

The projection by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which is holding its annual meeting in the Swiss ski resort this week, assumes a total loss of 7.1 million jobs, offset by a gain of 2 million new positions.

The 15 economies covered by the survey account for approximately 65 percent of the world’s total workforce.

The assessment highlights the challenges posed by modern technologies that are automating and making redundant multiple human tasks, from manufacturing to healthcare.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/robot-job-replacement_569cf3b3e4b0778f46f9f9b3?ir=Business§ion=business

Sounds as if the Davosians aren't being coy about how they value the 99%'s prospects in the coming years.

[Orrex]

1. I can make three predictions about this:

1. In addition to losing their jobs, those 5.1 million people can look forward to the scolding they'll receive for not making themselves more valuable to their prospective employers. In short, those people will be totally fucked.

2. There will be no corresponding reduction in prices despite the massive drop in labor cost resulting from this shift, so consumers will be fucked.

3. This change will be outrageous and unacceptable to those of us in the workforce today, but for the next generation it will simply be how the world works. The workforce in general, and the 99% as a whole, will be fucked.

[SheilaT]

2. Back in the 1950's and '60's

there was incredible anxiety that "automation" was going to throw million of workers, especially factory workers, out of jobs. There were essentially two schools of thought: either it would be handled by reducing the typical workweek to perhaps twenty hours, or predictions of horrible unemployment and accompanying economic crash.

But in truth, things do change. The kind of work people do changes. A hundred or so years ago a huge percentage of us lived on farms and did farm work. Now, not so much. There are many, many other examples that come to mind. Yes, structural changes involve dislocation and hardship, and our current system doesn't do a very good job, to say the least, of dealing with those who lose jobs because of change.

I certainly have no solutions, except to suggest people really do look ahead and see if they can anticipate what sorts of jobs might last, and try to prepare themselves for those jobs.

[Logical]

3. About the same time self driving cars hit the showroom. nt