Will Automation be good or bad for jobs and society?

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I don’t consider these people scum at all. It’s the implication that people doing essential low paid work deserve to be in financial trouble because that I find quite sad. I don’t wish to speculate on the economy God wants but this doesn’t feel right.

If you must know my degree is science based, I had hoped to go into a related field, automation deskilled the job to the point where you don’t really need any knowledge of the science behind it. This meant a few skilled jobs and a lot of unskilled low paid ones.

I however have always worked full time, turned up on time, done my job well, shown committment and yes I do think in return for that effort I deserved a wage that I could live on.

The idea that people on the dole are all feckless and workshy is very simplistic.

Many areas have very poor job markets, the cost of relocating is unrealistic for someone out of work (landlords require huge up front deposits and guarantors), running a car is more expensive here due to taxes and public transport is poor.

Jobs are less secure. Zero hours contracts are increasingly common, as are jobs where you are employed on a self employed basis.

And to be fair maybe some are workshy because they have realised that low paid or insecure work isn’t a route out of poverty and it’s just a waste of their time.

Anne that idea of robot carers is interesting. There are shortages of carers due it being a difficult poorly paid job. I remember when my late grandad became unwell we couldn’t find any care agencies that covered his area. This could be an interesting solution. Of course the most wealthy could pay extra for a human.
 
I do not know about you but from where I am at, the government and rules and the mindset is not at all friendly to businesses, especially small or medium ones.

Labor laws tend to be unfairly skewed towards employees even when they ade wayward.

You cannot blame business owners for wanting automation and reducing employees. Again from where we are at, it is so very hard to find good and decent employees.
 
I could kind of agree with various reasons in your post about why people are having trouble finding well-paying work.

BUT…I cannot agree with your sentence that those who are “workshy because they have realized that low paid or insecure work isn’t a route out of poverty and it’s just a waste of their time.” And I have very little sympathy for people who have this attitude, unless they are diagnosed with a clinical depression.

This attitude is totally un-Biblical. The Bible is filled with verses and passages telling us to WORK with our hands, not because we are paid, but because that is what God created us to do. Even before the Fall, Adam was given the job of taking care of the Garden of Eden (manual labor). He was not sitting around.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church also extols the value and DUTY of work in P 2427 and 2428. I love the last sentence: “Work is for man, not man for work.”

If I were you, I would examine my options with the help of a job counselor (whatever you call them), and I would take whatever steps they advised to move up in the world. In the U.S., there are millions of stories of people rising out of poverty and low-income, and achieving a good income that allowed them to have a middle-class life.

And although I am not judging you personally–there are people who get stuck in their financial situation because of some kind of addiction. I’m not just talking about alcohol or drug. Smokes are very expensive and eat up an income. FOOD (my vice!) is also very expensive–I spend way too much of my income on food, mainly junk food, and I’ve been trying this summer to budget myself so that I will have more money to pay off various long-standing debts (college loans, credit cards, home-repairs). Some people are addicted to various computer games, and even if it doesn’t cost them a lot of money, it costs TIME that they could be spending on additional education or on a second job. Some people spend way too much of a small income on collectibles that aren’t very valuable.

Right now in the U.S., many people, including wealthy people, are addicted to opioids, and this is really difficult for everyone. So tragic. It’s so easy to get hooked on these, and that’s what happens to a lot of people–they have surgery, get prescription meds for pain, and then they can’t stop. NO company will hire someone who is a drug addict (once they know about it)–too dangerous for everyone.

Like I said, I’m not judging you–you are probably the most temperate person ever! But there are plenty of others who will never be eligible to be hired for any good-paying, secure job because of their addictions. Of course, this may be a United States problem. We certainly have plenty of opportunities for people to be free to pursue their addictions.
 
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If you don’t actually tell what your salary needs are, the employer can’t know.
That and you do agree to a wage when you accept the position.

How can you have a leg to stand on arguing the employer is not paying a just wage?
 
fin said:
. Again from where we are at, it is so very hard to find good and decent employees
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Amen.
When my wife was looking for employees, she came home with a stack of applications. She went through about 60 looking for just qualified, then she went through interviews looking for someone that had the customer service skills.
And of all those, sadly, we had to go through again to filter out people simply out to screw up their boss.
Of nearly 100, we had 1 candidate.
 
Peeps said:
BUT…I cannot agree with your sentence that those who are “workshy because they have realized that low paid or insecure work isn’t a route out of poverty and it’s just a waste of their time.” And I have very little sympathy for people who have this attitude, unless they are diagnosed with a clinical depression.

This attitude is totally un-Biblical. The Bible is filled with verses and passages telling us to WORK with our hands, not because we are paid, but because that is what God created us to do. Even before the Fall, Adam was given the job of taking care of the Garden of Eden (manual labor). He was not sitting around.
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NO!~!~ There is NO shame in working with the aim to be paid. To pay for food, medical care, rent, child care if necessary, car insurance, be an upstanding citizen and pay Caesar what he’s due, haha, just essentially, to keep the lights on.
The only ones I know who work for nothing are those that do volunteer work which is admirable, but the average person Works’ to pay for life necessities.
Work IS indeed dignity, but there is an expectation of being paid and yes, it is biblical and most especially the biblical admonishment for a worker to paid a just wage!~
 
Because I work in the public sector and our wages are standardized. You don’t get to negotiate your salary.
 
But objectively for someone in poverty low paid insecure work is a waste of time if they are looking for an answer to their financial situation. That’s not to say nothing they do at work is worthwhile or that the routine and socialization won’t benefit their mental health of course.

I’m pretty financially savvy but if the cheapest rent is over half of your take home pay and you have bills, food, commuting cost (I have a sibling whose rail fare was a quarter of her salary) you can’t always make it work.
 
Ultimately you decide whether or not to take the job.

If you believe your talents are worth more than the pay, why don’t you look elsewhere?
 
I don’t think my talents are anything special. I think a living wage should be the minimum for showing up regularly and doing a competent job. I’ve no objection to high skill, specialist or more demanding jobs having higher salaries.

In my case after having a baby I most likely will stop working for a time as my salary doesn’t justify paying out for childcare.
 
ConfusedLucy said:
I don’t think my talents are anything special. I think a living wage should be the minimum for showing up regularly and doing a competent job
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And that is where automation comes in.
Why should an employer pay well for an employee that just shows up?
A robot will eventually replace these.
Of course, this is also predicated upon what exactly this living wage is.
Is the robot, with no skills, cheaper than the living wage?
 
ConfusedLucy said:
I don’t think my talents are anything special. I think a living wage should be the minimum for showing up regularly and doing a competent job. I’ve no objection to high skill, specialist or more demanding jobs having higher salaries.
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You appear very honest regarding your current circumstance, I applaud this. Don’t allow anyone to lop off the “competent” portion, bravo!~ It is an example of work with dignity.

A robot will never demand safety regulations in a work place nor a just or fair wage, but it will never work with dignity either. I’m reminded of the generous vineyard worker who was paid the same wage as those who came in late. Although this passage was geared to the Hebrew as a wake up call for the gentiles who would be grafted in, it does shine a light on employer generosity in a way we rarely hear of, if close to never.

Best wishes as you attempt gainful employment while balancing child care, no small feat to be sure.
 
Robots aren’t employees at all, just tools to accomplish a task. Wages aren’t a relevant issue with a machine
 
DENNYINMI said:
A robot will never demand safety regulations in a work place
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That’s a positive, as long as some jobs can’t be really be made safe. I don’t think climbing in a deep hole to dig coal will ever be without hazard. Similarly, someone tasked with clearing a minefield is courting the possibility of death or disability when on his appointed rounds.

Your quote makes it seem like a bad thing.
 
If/when automation takes off its surely time to question the “Arbeit macht frei” approach to work because an economy with less workers and higher taxes would surely make more sense.
 
Rozellelily said:
Won’t it reduce though the blue collar jobs and increase the white collar jobs?
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As someone who is directly contributing to the “problem” of automation, we’re also seeking ways of automating certain white collar jobs, which is where most of my contributions indirectly go. Google even has an entire job discipline called Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), and they’re all about “automating ourselves out of a job.” (Other companies like Microsoft and Amazon also have SREs.)

With that said, automation just forces us to change focus. When one task is automated, it frees us to pursue other opportunities, and of course even automated systems need human intervention from time to time. The really unfortunate reality, though, is that some people don’t have the skills necessary for this or have invested a lot into some industry being disrupted by technology, and certain professions will feel considerably more pain than others. It can be hard to transition, and while I don’t think we should treat automation as wrong, I think we do need to be cognizant of those whose lives will be disrupted and have social systems in place to aid them when that inevitably happens.
Brendan_64 said:
Has technology helped our working lives or has it actually led to longer working hours with demands for instant contact with employees, clients etc?
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Oddly, some of the major tech companies like Microsoft and Google don’t seem to have serious problems with overworking employees. One book I read from some Google employees even called out the practice as being discouraged at Google because it is unhealthy and damaging to the company and its employees.
ATraveller said:
I wonder if some realise they may end up programming and coding themselves out of employment.
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Companies that let that happen probably have a lot of other problems that would have made the person unemployed sooner or later anyways.
 
ConfusedLucy said:
think all jobs should pay a worker enough to live on.
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Why can’t two people mutually benefit by one selling their time to another for an amount less than it costs to support a person or an entire family? Why can’t I help someone out by sacrificing some of my money so that they can earn a little extra and feel good about themselves for not taking a hand out? Why does it have to be an amount that I cannot afford to give up and therefore will not offer?
 
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