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Automation of Jobs! Is yours next? Find a GIG soon.

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Worried about technology replacing you and your job? You should be! You don’t have to be a researcher, analyst, economist or rocket scientist to understand how the explosion of technology is and will continue to eliminate jobs. Many reading this have either had their job eliminated by off shoring or automation under the guise of downsizing or recessionary pressures on profitability. You likely now know it was all about using technology to lower cost, improve productivity, and thus be more price competitive.

Many employers did so out of necessity. Many without too much thought about long-term ramifications of unemployment or under employment. This trend will not only continue, but will speed up. The upside is improved quality, production and competitiveness on a global scale. The downside is one’s knowledge must keep pace with technology to keep your position in the markets your company serves.

Auto ManufacturingMore often than not it is the individual’s investment in themselves and less so from an employer. Net effect is employers will continue to seek out the use of more technology for the same reasons — lower overhead cost and improve productivity to stay competitive and profitable. And no, it’s not practical that an assembly line worker in a manufacturing or distribution whose job was eliminated by robotics is likely to learn how to program or repair the machines that replaced them.

Because we print and borrow so much money, investors have been able to house_moneyborrow money at near zero interest rates and invest in technologies or the stock market with little, if any risk. Cash is king. Despite those few companies who value their employees, keeping a large amount of cash on the balance sheet is the CFO’s charter. This is an endless cycle which will remain unabated and increasing until the Fed begins to increase interest rates. Then with higher borrowing rates, employers’ tech investment goes up, more jobs get automated faster. That means fewer consumers and less disposable income for more of those in the middle-income sector — unless you have an established reputation for results in the GIG marketplace.

Some have the belief that knowledge workers can stay above the replace with technology bar. Not so, as technology is adopted and artificial intelligence (AI) software is applied, knowledge workers also remain exposed to replacement by technology. The facts are what they seem. Most of us will have several jobs and “gigs” as the pace quickens and automation technology eliminates more jobs than it will create in the short run.

Remember, you can’t be a consumer of much other than necessities with reduced or no income. Millions of baby boomers around the world will be downsizing their consumption of goods and services with a greater burden on those governments who give some sort of safety net in the form of retirement, pension or healthcare benefits. We’ve already seen the results of over promising and under funding of these in Europe. This situation is  like ours in the U.S.; “If like your doctor, like your healthcare plan — you can keep them, PERIOD.” Another over promised, under delivered and underfunded government train wreck. Yet, it is  expected we will reach more than $20 trillion in national debt by 2020 and $154 trillion in underfunded social program liabilities.

The growth or decline of medium US household disposable income is a true and accurate indicator of current and future economies where consumerism is the primary driver. That measure has declined, and still is today, since 2007, despite the Obama claim of job growth since 2008.

If you are thinking about consumers in Europe, Russia, India and China as your new consumer haven for products and services, think again. Consumers of typical US goods and services in all these counties are not like us. All, for a variety of reasons are seeing declines in consumer spending — cutting back, not seeking better quality, just lower prices. Many more countries populations’ survive on $2.00 a day without healthcare or education. They are consumers for more material goods only when they can earn enough income. China is already backing off of the 7.5% GDP growth projection for 2015 to 7% or less compared to the U.S. 2% to 3% growth rate.

Conventional wisdom economists continue to forecast “a return to normal economic and jobs recovery”. If nothing else, your “gut” should tell you otherwise. By typical economic definition we are several years into recovery. If you have been able to find full-time employment, don’t bet on pressures beyond your control or that of your employer to sustain your job.

Doctor Studying X-RayEven Anesthesiologist jobs or part of their work is being automated with smarter recognition technologies. Can you imagine spending hundreds of thousands for a 13 year education, hospital residency and specialty training to achieve an income often greater than $300,000 annually only to see it dissected and parts outsourced to technology? Typically outsourcing or off-shoring to India, China, or St. Croix for cheaper labor is only a temporary step while developing automation technology continues to pick up speed.

If you have been in the professional independent or freelancer market, (by choice or by necessity) you have had to learn to be smarter and more varied in your marketing for new or repeat business. As automation continues an increasing number of retiring boomers — who can’t survive solely on Social Security — will enter the open freelance market to sell their particular skills on a contract basis. Some of those jobs offered by online staffing are rapidly becoming price competitive and commoditized.

It seems to many that conventional wisdom economists are forecasting with a 1920’s financial model and historical data without accepting that those models do not consider the rate of globalization and technology advances creating only a few new, but highly skilled jobs. With the advances in artificial intelligence software (AI) and robotics paced by ever more powerful computational chip sets, whole factories can be operated by as few as one highly skilled technician. Buck Rogers you say? Not so. It already exists on a smaller scale in many places.

Follow the reports and books from authors Martin FordErik Bynjolfsson and Andrew McAffee if you need more details and convincing. My book “Boomerville: Getting off the Corporate Merry-Go-Round”, which illustrates the journey of baby boomers and how they will bridge the gap to the GIG economy, can also point you toward new opportunities. I offer discounts when purchased at my book store, but you will also find it on Amazon and B&N.

If you know or accept the information here, you should be asking, “What can be done about it?” The remedy has many components as a solution. Many of these component remedies are simple. Others are more complex to detail here. Others like education are beyond a unified solution. The answers involve the growing use of blending and re-purposing the workforce in an ever enlarging GIG economy.

Register to receive my FREE monthly GIG Economy Report and keep pace with these changes and how they will impact jobs, technology and labor markets. Objective straight talk you won’t find elsewhere specializing on this topic. A topic which trumps the chatter and noise of HR, recruitment, training and leadership formulas. It’s a race between you, your employer (if you have one) and technology. Who will win?

If you are not keeping up with technology and automation, you should. Few jobs, including white-collar positions, will escape the developing technologies.


Filed under: Adult Learning, Back from the Future Think Tank, Better College Preparation, Blended Workforce, Boomers, Workforce Development, Workforce Management Tagged: Baby boomer, blended workforce, Contingent workforce, executive decision makers, forecasting labor utilization, gig economy, global competition, Michael Hib, Mike Hammer, SP3M Group

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