The Bank of England, Oxford University, a global technology consultancy and the United States Congress are far from siren voices that are easy to dismiss. This is the heart of the economics and business establishment. While not everyone agrees on the extent to which technology will create unemployment in the short term, even more conservative voices think unavoidable change is not far away.
Take the Millennium Project. Launched in the 1990s by several UN organisations, it expects global unemployment to increase to 16 per cent by 2030 before rising to 24 per cent by the middle of the century. While that is more guarded than the Bank of England’s predictions, or the claims of Peter Sondergaard, such a shift would more than test business as usual. A world of 10 billion people facing the challenges of climate change, ageing and resource shortages would endure levels of joblessness similar to those confronting Greece today – a country where 50 per cent youth unemployment has given rise to the most polarised society in Europe. Not only would such a scenario generate political and social turbulence on a global scale but importantly – and unlike with Greece – there would be no promise of a brighter tomorrow, however far away.
The most frequent rejoinder to all of this is that while the jobs of today may well disappear, others will emerge in their place. After all, that is what has always happened in the past. And yet that isn’t quite true. Eighty per cent of today’s professions existed a century ago, with the number of people employed in the 20 per cent of new occupations comprising only one in ten jobs. While the world economy may be much bigger now than it was in 1900, employing more people and enjoying far higher output per person, the lines of work nearly everyone performs – drivers, nurses, teachers and cashiers – aren’t particularly new.
Full Automation
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