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As technology evolves, so will our jobs
In 1964, my sixth-grade class held a debate on automation. I was on the team that argued automation was a good thing. The other side said machines would eventually eliminate all our jobs. I was disappointed when the class decided the anti-automation team made the stronger case, but as it turns out, I should not have been surprised. In March 1964 a group of top scientists sent President Lyndon Johnson a letter warning that the growing use of computers would lead to mass unemployment. The scientists said smarter machines would create a society that requires ”progressively less human labor."
By Charles Stein, Globe Columnist
Forty years later we are still worried about our jobs in a world in which improving technology and outsourcing are making business ever more productive. The questions we are asking are essentially the same ones: Will there be enough jobs left for us to do and will they be decent jobs or crummy ones?
Frank Levy is reasonably hopeful things will work out all right. ”We are going in the right direction, but getting there won’t be pretty," said Levy, an economist at MIT. Levy and Richard Murnane of Harvard have written a book, ”The New Division of Labor," that tries to explain how technology influences the job market.
The reason for their optimism is pretty basic. Computers and outsourcing cut costs and boost productivity. Over time rising productivity creates new wealth and new job opportunities, even as old jobs disappear. It is a scary process because you never know what those new jobs might be.
If, 40 years ago, you had predicted that ordinary people in the future would hire personal trainers to help them exercise, would anyone have believed you? Yet, somehow, the new jobs keep showing up.
The finance industry offers an interesting case study. Computers handle most trades these days. They also settle up accounts at the end of the day, a job that once required lots of paper and lots of people. But as costs have come down, the number of transactions and the number of financial products have exploded. Where there used to be hundreds of mutual funds, today there are thousands.
There is also a new job in finance — the financial planner — to help people cope with the growing complexity of the field. The planner illustrates another of Levy and Murnane’s key points: Human beings still matter. Computers can’t look us in the eye or hold our hands. Nor can they solve problems that can’t be anticipated ahead of time. The Internet may yet whittle down the commissions real estate brokers earn, but it won’t eliminate the job of the real estate broker whose unique set of human skills is essential to bringing buyers and sellers together.
”Good jobs will increasingly require expert thinking and complex communications," the authors write. That is good news for people with the requisite education and talent. Here’s the bad news. ”Jobs that do not require these skills will not pay a living wage."
Thirty years ago, half of all Americans held blue-collar or clerical jobs. Those jobs are the ones that have disappeared and the trend is likely to continue. If a job can be reduced to a set of predictable rules, Levy says, it is in danger of being eliminated. Think of a woman who works at a call center. She might be displaced by a lower-paid equivalent in India or by a piece of voice recognition software. Either way, her job is gone.
Some former blue- and pink-collar workers have experienced downward mobility. They work at Wal-Mart or McDonald’s in jobs that don’t come with health insurance or pensions. The long-term answer is education. In the meantime job market losers need more help than they get.
”You have to start talking about more of a safety net," Levy said. Universal health insurance would be a step in the right direction. So would wage insurance and more generous job retraining. Without such help, Levy warns, support for free markets and free trade could erode.
On the whole, I take comfort from the message Levy and Murnane deliver: Technology isn’t going away, but neither are our jobs. It turns out I was on the right side of the debate in 1964 after all.
Charles Stein is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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