“I will be the greatest jobs President that God ever created.”
@POTUS Donald Trump campaigned with this and won, partially due to the job-loss-induced frustration in places like the Rust Belt. Building a border wall and introducing import tariffs will help some, but they won’t fix the problem. Technology is the real villain, and many of the jobs lost over the past generation are gone forever.
What really happened to the disappearing jobs? A study from Ball State University revealed that only 13% of lost manufacturing jobs could be blamed on foreign trade, while the remaining 87% were due to technology. At least for the near future, they don’t see it getting any better.
Service/knowledge jobs have also been disappearing. Some loss is due to computers, which have increased the productivity of these workers several-fold. If your call to tech support goes through a series of number pushes on your phone to finally get a live person, you have experienced one example of this first-hand. Many of us frequently interact with ATM’s and Self-Checkout lines – two more examples of technology improving business productivity. Apple’s Siri can now take dictation for many documents and messages. Google’s translation program is fast and accurate. Massive Open Online Courses are disrupting the business of higher education. Automated online ordering is rapidly demolishing the brick-and-mortar business model. The perp-list is long and it’s growing.
