McDonalds workers due to strike for £10 an hour...

[Tefal]

people have been making that argument for 200 years now, I'll wait for some empirical evidence demonstrating that we're going to see massive job losses before I start to believe that. We've had increased automation for decades - software, machines, machine learning, these are hardly new things - people do hype up AI every so often... the creators of back to the future thought we'd have flying cars, nuclear fusion and hover boards by now (aside from a lame attempt at one that hasn't happened).

I'm not sure we need fear our robot overlords just yet:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=669792369880893

except we arent talking about robots like that any more dowie.

we're talking about programs that automate office work etc, and they already exist.

Lets say i make one physical robot that does the job of a secretery it takes 10 guys to build it, great loadsa new jobs making and maintaining.

lets say i buid a software bot that replaces one paralegal, now even if it took 100 people to make it, once its made i could replace 1, or 1 mnillion paralegals with no more added cost or work.

when we automated factors we didnt have a "copy paste" function.

 

[dowie]

except we arent talking about robots like that any more dowie.

we're talking about programs that automate office work etc, and they already exist.

Lets say i make one physical robot that does the job of a secretery it takes 10 guys to build it, great loadsa new jobs making and maintaining.

lets say i buid a software bot that replaces one paralegal, now even if it took 100 people to make it, once its made i could replace 1, or 1 mnillion paralegals with no more added cost or work.

when we automated factors we didnt have a "copy paste" function.

it is the same argument, it doesn't matter whether you're talking about steam locomotives, the combustion engine, robots or whatever... people have been making that argument for two centuries now and it doesn't materialise. At one point the vast majority of the population were basically working in agriculture, these days we only need a tiny portion of the workforce to provide our food.

 

[Tefal]

just look at the difference in employment numbers between ford and google.

automation in ther past generated jobs, now its not its just removing them.

automate a truck, and you dont make any new jobs, it doesn't take more people to build them, takes a small team to keep the software up to date, but at the same time how many drivers, training schools, cafes etc shut down?

 

[Tefal]

it is the same argument, it doesn't matter whether you're talking about steam locomotives, the combustion engine, robots or whatever... people have been making that argument for two centuries now and it doesn't materialise. At one point the vast majority of the population were basically working in agriculture, these days we only need a tiny portion of the workforce to provide our food.

ok so transport, a huge secotr in terms of man power, say we automate taxis and lorries.

what jobs will those people do? what new job will be created?


it's not the same argument because a steam locomotive has to be built, just likme i said.

you remove 100 horse carts but you make 200 workshop jobs.

there is no work shop for software copying.

At one point the vast majority of the population were basically working in agriculture, these days we only need a tiny portion of the workforce to provide our food.

and what happens when we only need a tiny proportion of the population in the service industry dowie?

 

[dowie]

just look at the difference in employment numbers between ford and google.

automation in ther past generated jobs, now its not its just removing them.

automate a truck, and you dont make any new jobs, it doesn't take more people to build them, takes a small team to keep the software up to date, but at the same time how many drivers, training schools, cafes etc shut down?

well we're not all manually plowing fields all day yet the loss of those agricultural jobs isn't exactly a bad thing... I don't really see the logic of cherry picking some arbitrary two companies and starting from some position that one is supposed to directly make up for lost jobs at the other

 

[dowie]

ok so transport, a huge secotr in terms of man power, say we automate taxis and lorries.

what jobs will those people do? what new job will be created?


it's not the same argument because a steam locomotive has to be built, just likme i said.

you remove 100 horse carts but you make 200 workshop jobs.

there is no work shop for software copying.




and what happens when we only need a tiny proportion of the population in the service industry dowie?

it is the same argument again - what jobs do we do now relative to when we were mostly all working in fields?

as for software - it isn't exactly a new thing, we've had 'software' since the middle of last century... again we've not seen massive job losses, only growth despite the fact that it has generally used to automate tasks and make jobs more efficient over several decades... yet with some handwaving argument somehow... 'this time' it is supposed to be different?

 

[LeeUK]

but there are jobs being created, we've got record high unemployment so you're talking nonsense

see:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentan...ployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/june2017



so you're making an argument that "no where is taking on" as you phrase it but it is based on nothing other than your own pessimistic world view as employers clearly are taking on workers to the extent that 372,000 more jobs have been created since this time last year!

Are all these jobs that are being created as you say, quality jobs? or are they all crappy jobs like McDonalds, zero hour jobs, and naff 12 hour a week contracts?

It's like when they say unemployment has fallen but what they really mean is half the people have had their benefits sanctioned, and the other half have found temp employment in a warehouse for the summer.

 

[dowie]

Are all these jobs that are being created as you say, quality jobs? or are they all crappy jobs like McDonalds, zero hour jobs, and naff 12 hour a week contracts?

no they're not 'all' those sorts of jobs

It's like when they say unemployment has fallen but what they really mean is half the people have had their benefits sanctioned, and the other half have found temp employment in a warehouse for the summer.

you seem more interested in just putting forth your own unsubstantiated pessimistic view tbh..

 

[vincent1989]

Are all these jobs that are being created as you say, quality jobs? or are they all crappy jobs like McDonalds, zero hour jobs, and naff 12 hour a week contracts?

It's like when they say unemployment has fallen but what they really mean is half the people have had their benefits sanctioned, and the other half have found temp employment in a warehouse for the summer.

I think zero hours jobs are awful as they allow no opportunity for people to plan their lives properly however I've spent most of my life working in naff jobs that have typically started as part time jobs and I never had a problem getting the hours I wanted or needed not long after starting. Do you know who struggled to get the hours they said they wanted? the people who didn't really want to be there, the people who didn't make themselves useful, the people that didn't take every opportunity to be as multi-skilled and indispensable as possible.

When eventually I was in the position to give out overtime or increase peoples contracts do you know who got the first refusal? The people who were hard working and not the people that threw sickies every 5 minutes. For the people that want it, that are skilled and/or qualified for the jobs they are applying for, the work is out there in plentiful supply.

 

[LeeUK]

I think zero hours jobs are awful as they allow no opportunity for people to plan their lives properly however I've spent most of my life working in naff jobs that have typically started as part time jobs and I never had a problem getting the hours I wanted or needed not long after starting. Do you know who struggled to get the hours they said they wanted? the people who didn't really want to be there, the people who didn't make themselves useful, the people that didn't take every opportunity to be as multi-skilled and indispensable as possible.

When eventually I was in the position to give out overtime or increase peoples contracts do you know who got the first refusal? The people who were hard working and not the people that threw sickies every 5 minutes. For the people that want it, that are skilled and qualified for the jobs they are applying for, the work is out there in plentiful supply.

Yes it is, but if you have a house to pay for and bills, you don't have time to mess about on a 12 hour contract waiting for the day they offer you overtime because you have "proved yourself".

 

[vincent1989]

Yes it is, but if you have a house to pay for and bills, you don't have time to mess about on a 12 hour contract waiting for the day they offer you overtime because you have "proved yourself".

How many fully grown adults who recognised that they needed to be productive and engage with their free education do you know that are in that position?

You can't slum it in a bush smoking cigarettes with your mates, bunking off school and then expect the rest of the world to go 'oh, it's ok, take our money, here's a million £ just for being you, here's a full time job that you're going to love and enjoy yadda yadda.' It just doesn't work like that.

The vast majority of people in jobs like that are there for one of two reasons, either it's convenient for them (fits around study) or because they're an idiot. When I was in that kind of work it was because I was an idiot, most of the young people I knew in those kind of jobs were there because they were also idiots who hadn't taken their education seriously and either threw it away entirely (me) or wasted it on degrees with no purpose. Most of the older people were there because it was convenient whilst they waited for their free bus pass.

 

[Energize]

In all due respect I can. Your referring to monetary inflation.

Of course I'm not talking about monetary inflation, that occurs when the money supply increases regardless of changes in productivity. I'm talking about price inflation. Milton Friedman (economics nobel prize winner) has a good series of videos you can find on youtube, explains in detail how increasing salaries can not cause price inflation.

 

[dowie]

Yes it is, but if you have a house to pay for and bills, you don't have time to mess about on a 12 hour contract waiting for the day they offer you overtime because you have "proved yourself".

so perhaps it is better that you put yourself in a position where you're not reliant on 12 hour min wage/low skilled employment then

 

[LeeUK]

so perhaps it is better that you put yourself in a position where you're not reliant on 12 hour min wage/low skilled employment then

That's what I'm saying all along. There are less and less quality jobs out there. Geez.

 

[dowie]

That's what I'm saying all along. There are less and less quality jobs out there. Geez.

what are you basing that on, given that I've already shown you that more jobs have been created?

 

[SPG]

Increase the wage.

Only the multi millionaire shareholders profit from leeping the minions on low pay.

They have enough money already. Plus the increased wage will improve staff recruitment and the rest of the useless people can go work at kfc where the restaurants are constantly untidy, litter, tables not clean etc etc.

 

[Freakbro]

Increase the wage.

Only the multi millionaire shareholders profit from leeping the minions on low pay.

You mean like the pension companies

They have enough money already.

They generally don't

Plus the increased wage will improve staff recruitment and the rest of the useless people can go work at kfc where the restaurants are constantly untidy, litter, tables not clean etc etc.

Sounds like KFC already have all the useless people they need!

 

[LeeUK]

It's nice to see the snobbery is still alive where folk get looked down on for working in certain jobs.

(No I don't work in a fast food restaurant).

 

[Efour]

I wonder how many pension funds have maccy D's in their portfolios?

Anyway to tell? Easily...

 

[Spook187]

It's nice to see the snobbery is still alive where folk get looked down on for working in certain jobs.

(No I don't work in a fast food restaurant).

Yup the forums are full of few gonks with dressed up jobs to make them seem more important but in reality they are just the same.