Technological Unemployment News & Discussions

[Yuli Ban]

[Yuli Ban]

Businesses are struggling to hire during the labor shortage, with some turning to robots for mundane jobs.

The CEO of an automation business told Bloomberg that "people want to remove labor."

Elon Musk previously said physical work "will be a choice" in the future as automation grows.

Amid a struggle to hire workers, using robots for mundane tasks is helping so much that executives are preparing for robots to take over altogether.

"People want to remove labor," Ametek Inc. CEO David A. Zapico told Bloomberg. Ametek makes automatic equipment for industrial firms, and Zapico said his business is "firing on all cylinders."

Insider has reported on possible causes for the labor shortage, and there's no one reason why people aren't returning to work. Mismatches between the jobs that are open and the skills that workers have are likely partially responsible, and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh told Insider that he thought three things were driving shortages: living through unprecedented times, health concerns, and people rethinking what they want out of work.

[Yuli Ban]

Labor shortages and rising wages are pushing U.S. business to invest in automation. A recent Federal Reserve survey of chief financial officers found that at firms with difficulty hiring, one-third are implementing or exploring automation to replace workers. In earnings calls over the past month, executives from a range of businesses confirmed the trend.
Domino’s Pizza Inc. is “putting in place equipment and technology that reduce the amount of labor that is required to produce our dough balls,” said Chief Executive Officer Ritch Allison.

Mark Coffey, a group vice president at Hormel Foods Corp., said the maker of Spam spread and Skippy peanut butter is “ramping up our investments in automation” because of the “tight labor supply.”

The mechanizing of mundane tasks has been underway for generations. It’s made remarkable progress in the past decade: The number of industrial robots installed in the world’s factories more than doubled in that time, to about 3 million. Automation has been spreading into service businesses too.

As a techno-accelerationist, GOOD.

[Ozzie guy]

I sense that there will still be crappy jobs available as long as we don't have AGI and that as long as there are crappy jobs available we will be blamed for being out of work and forced to fight with tons of people for shit jobs with wages being reduced due to competition from unemployed people. I think the only thing that could stop this is fear of genuine revolution. More likely I think we will be f***ed more and more for some years and have to hope for AGI and prey it will do something utopian rather than serve the bourgeoisie.

[Yuli Ban]

Companies in North America added a record number of robots in the first nine months of this year as they rushed to speed up assembly lines and struggled to add human workers.

Factories and other industrial users ordered 29,000 robots, 37% more than during the same period last year, valued at $1.48 billion, according to data compiled by the industry group the Association for Advancing Automation. That surpassed the previous peak set in the same time period in 2017, before the global pandemic upended economies.
The rush to add robots is part of a larger upswing in investment as companies seek to keep up with strong demand, which in some cases has contributed to shortages of key goods. At the same time, many firms have struggled to lure back workers displaced by the pandemic and view robots as an alternative to adding human muscle on their assembly lines.

[Yuli Ban]

Companies in North America added a record number of robots in the first nine months of this year as they rushed to speed up assembly lines and struggled to add human workers.

Factories and other industrial users ordered 29,000 robots, 37% more than during the same period last year, valued at $1.48 billion, according to data compiled by the industry group the Association for Advancing Automation. That surpassed the previous peak set in the same time period in 2017, before the global pandemic upended economies.

The rush to add robots is part of a larger upswing in investment as companies seek to keep up with strong demand, which in some cases has contributed to shortages of key goods. At the same time, many firms have struggled to lure back workers displaced by the pandemic and view robots as an alternative to adding human muscle on their assembly lines.

[Yuli Ban]

Anyone who’s followed the job market in the wake of COVID re-openings knows that the restaurant industry is facing a severe labor shortage. The industry traditionally employs shifting, transitory workforces, but it’s never been like this. Staff turnover in restaurants, particularly fast-food spots, has skyrocketed, with a monthly turnover rate of 144 percent. U.S. Labor Department data confirms restaurant workers are quitting their jobs at the highest rate in two decades, with 70 percent more job openings now than there were in 2019.

To say the current staffing crisis has put fast-food restaurants — otherwise known in the industry as Quick Service Restaurants — behind the eight ball is an understatement. National fast-food chain Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers even took the amazing step of reassigning corporate employees to serve the front line as fry cooks and cashiers in over 500 of their locations nationwide.

Racked with labor shortages, restaurant owners and franchisees are looking for new options to keep doors open and stores profitable. And if you can’t get humans to staff your restaurants, how about robots instead?

[Yuli Ban]

The labor crunch is helping to feed the rise of the robots

How ‘I quit' is leading to 'I, Robot'
Last week, two separate but related labor market themes caught my attention.

After Thursday’s news that employees walking off the job hit yet another record in September, a report from Reuters showed that North American companies added a record number of robots this year to bolster assembly lines, in a bid to alleviate the well-chronicled labor crunch (a hat tip on this article goes to economic commentator James Pethokoukis, who runs one of my favorite reads on the global economy).

Citing data from the Association for Advancing Automation, Reuters pointed out that industrial firms rang up nearly $1.5 billion worth of robots (29,000 to be exact) — a whopping 37% more than the comparable period in 2020. Separately, Google Cloud research in June showed that two-thirds of manufacturers using artificial intelligence (AI) are relying more heavily on it.

The Morning Brief has ruminated about the impact of the labor shortage and its close blood relative, the Great Resignation. Connecting the seemingly disparate threads, it poses a burning question: Are workers reluctant to fill open jobs — or stay put in them, for that matter — sowing the seeds of humanity’s eventual demise in the labor force?

However irrational, the theme that human workers should fear the dawn of our robot overlords is hardly a novel one. Yet like everything else in the pandemic-era, the fallout from COVID-19 has poured accelerant on an already raging fire. With conditions worsening, we cannot help but wonder if workers are hastening the rise of automation in a way that displaces human labor — but in a more permanent way?

[Yuli Ban]

These are the jobs at the highest risk from automation

Waiters, inspectors, receptionists, and groundskeepers beware. A new HSBC Global Research report found that these types of jobs each has a greater than 90% chance of being displaced due to automation within roughly the next 10 years.

Each of these types of work were given an Automation Risk Score of over 90% (out of 100) in the report and were listed among the jobs in today’s economy most likely to be lost to robots.

[Nanotechandmorefuture]

Anyone who’s followed the job market in the wake of COVID re-openings knows that the restaurant industry is facing a severe labor shortage. The industry traditionally employs shifting, transitory workforces, but it’s never been like this. Staff turnover in restaurants, particularly fast-food spots, has skyrocketed, with a monthly turnover rate of 144 percent. U.S. Labor Department data confirms restaurant workers are quitting their jobs at the highest rate in two decades, with 70 percent more job openings now than there were in 2019.

To say the current staffing crisis has put fast-food restaurants — otherwise known in the industry as Quick Service Restaurants — behind the eight ball is an understatement. National fast-food chain Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers even took the amazing step of reassigning corporate employees to serve the front line as fry cooks and cashiers in over 500 of their locations nationwide.

Racked with labor shortages, restaurant owners and franchisees are looking for new options to keep doors open and stores profitable. And if you can’t get humans to staff your restaurants, how about robots instead?

I guess its not long until Flippy, some Boston Atlas robot types, and much more out there to be created make our food no? That UBI and I think its UBMOP is starting to seem real good right now with this affecting fast food workers quickly!

[Yuli Ban]

Flippy's more likely than Boston Dynamics robots. The backrooms of fast food and restaurant venues will probably look fairly mechanized, like an industrial line. This is part of a larger ordeal where I realized it's better to imagine future labor automation by thinking of automated buildings as robotic cells, rather than focusing on the individual units.

There won't be humanoids in hardhats taking jobs; we're just going to turn whole buildings into robots. You'll probably never see the mechanisms either.

[Yuli Ban]

Starbucks, Amazon open cashier-less store in Manhattan

Starbucks and Amazon are teaming up on a grab-and-go store format in New York City.

The Seattle-based companies will open their first Starbucks Pickup with Amazon Go location on Thursday in Midtown Manhattan.

The store is located on 59th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. At least two more New York stores are planned for next year.

The stores offer the full Starbucks menu prepared by Starbucks baristas as well as prepared salads, sandwiches, and snacks from Amazon Go. There is also a lounge area with tables and workspaces.

Customers can order drinks and food using Starbucks’ app or shop the Amazon Go section, which automatically tallies items added to the cart so customers don’t have to wait in line to check out.

[Yuli Ban]

In a truck yard the size of a football field several miles north of Denver, a fleet of robotic trucks ferry semi-trailers between assigned spots and warehouse doors for 16 hours each day. A few humans keep watch.

Zach Moss is a 37-year-old former truck driver who now spends much of his 8-hour shift at a desk inside a nearby warehouse. There, he queues up moves and watches yard activity on a computer screen as the 80,000 lb. robots outside do his former job.

If something seems off, Moss hits a kill switch. Otherwise, he works on administrative tasks, talks to his human coworkers or grabs a snack.

“It’s a step up from being on the road all the time,” Moss said. “It kind of blows my mind that we’re going in this direction.”

Moss works as a test technician for Outrider. It’s a Golden-based robotics developer whose mission is to automate the bustling truck yards outside of tens of thousands of distribution warehouses across the world, where most everyday goods are boxed and shipped to customers.

Outrider lauds its main test site in Brighton as one of the most automated in the country. Analysts say it's a glimpse of what future shipping and freight yards will look like — a place where more robots than humans work, rendering people nearly obsolete.

Traditional human-run yards are dangerous and inefficient, said Andrew Smith, Outrider’s founder and CEO. Over-the-road truckers can waste hours dropping off and picking up trailers in the busy hubs, he said.

[funkervogt]

A lack of robots is one of the single biggest problems among the many logistical issues currently tangling America's supply chains.

At most major ports around the world, the cranes that unload shipping containers from boats to trucks are largely automated. That means they can operate around the clock at lower cost and—extra importantly right now—have zero risk of catching COVID-19. One recent study found that cranes at the mostly automated port in Rotterdam, Netherlands, are roughly 80 percent more efficient than cranes at the Port of Oakland, California, where humans still man the controls. In other words, it takes nearly twice as long to unload the same ship in Oakland as it would in Rotterdam.

One of the major hurdles to automation is the expense. It can cost as much as $500 million to install new, fully automated terminals at existing ports, according to the Journal of Commerce, a trade publication. Even if it might make sense to do that in the long run, short-term considerations keep American ports operating at their current, less efficient status quo.

https://reason.com/2021/11/09/americas- ... utomation/

[Yuli Ban]

Rise of the (fast food) robots: How labor shortages are accelerating automation

When you think of innovative industries, fast food might not be the first type of business that springs to mind. But as an investor, your options for innovative companies aren’t limited to new frontiers like electric vehicles, online gambling, or space stocks.

Innovation is also a growth driver in the seemingly humdrum business of fast food. In many ways, innovations have shaped fast food as we know it today. A quick glimpse at the early years of the world’s largest fast food restaurant demonstrates how new ideas can translate to big upside for shareholders.

Innovation is a fast food ‘supersizer’
The original McDonald’s restaurant was opened in 1940 in San Bernardino, California. Using their own operational innovation, the application of production line manufacturing to fast food (dubbed the ‘Speedee Service System’), the McDonald brothers had a local hit.

Harry Sonneborn doesn’t get much pop culture recognition in the McDonald’s story, but the financial innovations he executed still shape the company today. Any time you hear an assertion that McDonald’s is in the real estate business and not in the hamburger business, think Sonneborn.

The company is so well known that many readers have probably already thought of other innovations: menu items like the Big Mac or Filet-O-Fish, the introduction of the Happy Meal, and of course the creation of Ronald McDonald.

[Yuli Ban]

When customers buy a cupcake at a Sprinkles bakery, they no longer line up at a cashier. Instead, they type into a tablet, swipe a credit card and wait for an employee to retrieve an order.

The kiosk system — which the cupcake chain began testing during at the beginning of the pandemic — initially allowed social distancing. Now, it helps the Austin, Texas-based company keep pace with increased online orders in a tight labor market where new employees are hard to find and retain. Its 20 locations will have the kiosks by early January, said Justin Murakami, Sprinkles senior vice president of operations.

To cope in these changing times, retailers and restaurants are stepping up investments in robots and other technology. Walgreens is turning to automation to fill prescriptions, while Sprinkles and Starbucks move to swap out cashiers for tablets. Elsewhere, Walmart-owned Sam’s Club is using robots to scrub store floors and scan inventory at some locations, and restaurant chains like Buffalo Wild Wings and White Castle are testing robots that can flip burgers or make chicken wings.

[Yuli Ban]

China has unveiled a set of ambitious goals to enhance automation in manufacturing, as it strives to become a global leader in bringing robots to the factory floor.
Under a five-year plan jointly published by several government agencies, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China aims to achieve a minimum annual growth of 20 per cent in robotics sales, and develop a group of industry champions to double the “robot density” of the world’s most populous country.

China has unveiled a set of ambitious goals to enhance automation in manufacturing, as it strives to become a global leader in bringing robots to the factory floor.
Under a five-year plan jointly published by several government agencies, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China aims to achieve a minimum annual growth of 20 per cent in robotics sales, and develop a group of industry champions to double the “robot density” of the world’s most populous country.

[Yuli Ban]

The debate around whether AI will automate jobs away is heating up. AI critics claim that these statistical models lack the creativity and intuition of human workers and that they are thus doomed to specific, repetitive tasks. However, this pessimism fundamentally underestimates the power of AI. While AI job automation has already replaced around 400,000 factory jobs in the U.S. from 1990 to 2007, with another 2 million on the way, AI today is automating the economy in a much more subtle way.

[Nero]

Most the graphs that depict unemployment often do so with the majority of it occurring at the later end of the decade, more than half the people that will be made unemployed by automation will work until maybe 2027 or 2028, only a minor amount will become unemployed in the 2020-2025 timeframe

[Yuli Ban]

Now You Can Rent a Robot Worker—for Less Than Paying a Human

POLAR MANUFACTURING has been making ​metal ​hinges, locks, and brackets ​in south Chicago for more than 100 years. Some of the company’s metal presses—hulking great machines that loom over a worker—date from the 1950s. Last year, to meet rising demand amid a shortage of workers, Polar hired its first robot employee