Automation: Will there be any work?

In an age when many people already feel that the middle class is under stress, automation can seem like the final nail in the coffin.

The reality of automation is highlighted by The Wall Street Journal, however, which says that it often brings about the creation of more jobs at the same time that it eliminates others. The trick is how to avoid being caught without a transition plan.

The Journal brings up the case of bank tellers in the 1970s. At that time, automated teller machines had begun arriving on the scene, and many people were afraid that the position would be lost entirely in the future. Fast forward to 2016, however, and the number of bank tellers has doubled. The reason for this seeming paradox lies in what automation brought to the banking industry. With the advent of ATMs, branches became smaller and cheaper to operate which in turn allowed banks to open more locations and hire more tellers in total.

Of course, there have been some instances of new technology nearly eliminating entire industries. In 1900, 40 percent of workers in the US worked in agriculture; today, that number is less than 2 percent. New equipment, seeds, fertilizers, and techniques have drastically reduced the number of people required to produce the same amount of food.

Once farms began to automate, there was a huge fear of mass unemployment in agricultural states. Those states created the high school movement which required everyone to stay in school until 16. It was expensive, but it prepared those children for more advanced factory jobs and helped to fuel the explosion in college enrollment after World War II.

The key takeaway from both of these examples is that those with lost jobs often found new opportunities elsewhere that didn’t exist before the change. According to Fortune, the emphasis at the national level should be on policies that help workers retrain and prepare for new jobs if they find themselves on the wrong side of automation.