| Future technology worries many people because they believe it will take a high percentage of jobs. Let us all hope that is true. While it is stressful to lose a job, the great benefits of lower prices to everyone outweighs those lost jobs. Labor hours freed up in one industry creates opportunities to start or expand new or existing industries. While technology advancements over the centuries happened very slow, the last two centuries have shown rapid increases. Going forward, the pace will increase, and people need to learn to rapidly adjust with it. |  |
 | In the 1980s, I was told in high school that the job market was changing, and we needed to prepare to have multiple jobs over our lifetime. I suspect that was said to the youth since the 1800s industrial age. Most likely, throughout history, there was this theme at some level. Indeed, since the 1990s computer and internet boom, it became apparent that the pace of change was accelerating. Everyone is on full notice that it will take fewer labor hours to produce the same product or service every year. |
| As markets open up around the world, people also need to know the division of labor will take certain jobs outside America's borders. People need to likewise understand that this is good overall for everyone collectively; however, change always comes with struggles for individuals. Sometimes the transformation can be anticipated, and others come suddenly without warning. |  |
 | However, without that change, we all would be much poorer and still doing back-breaking hard labor just to survive. Life expectancy would not have increased. Over 50% of the people would still be on the farm or in food-related businesses. Currently, there are fewer than 5%. Those labor hours were freed up to do more things. Over 50% of the products and services most of us currently enjoy today, we either did not have at all or only a small percentage of the people could afford it. |
| Technology might speed up that change and people will need to plan on changing with it and not putting all their human capital and hopes in one career. Until everyone is getting weekly massages, personal chefs, personal live entertainment, chauffeurs, butlers, maids, pool boys, gardeners, landscapers among other services, additional job opportunities will not go away. Until everyone has 5,000 square foot homes loaded with everything they want, and 5 luxury vacations a year, there is still a lot of bandwidth of job opportunities. |  |
 | Too many people claim that all the benefits of technology will go to only a few people that own all the robots. They need to learn better economics. Technology always drives the cost down, and that helps everyone. However, the poor achieve the most benefits when they can enjoy more services and products due to the lower price. Some people claim that the rich will just keep all the money from the advancements. While some of that is true for a short time frame, the rich are not benefited from money they just keep. They have to offer that money to others so they can be served or acquire products. |
| Some people will claim that robots will take over all the possible jobs including making, programming, and servicing robots. Those people need to realize if that happens then the cost of living will approach $0 a year and we would all have all our needs and wants acquired. That will not happen. There will always be the desire from some to have a real person to interact with versus robots, and that includes within the business. There is a strong desire among people to create new things, to start a career, and to be worthwhile to others. People will always find a way to serve others. A large part of a man's pride and worth is his career. |  |
 | If a new discovery happened tomorrow that allowed a small box to safely generate enough electricity for your home with very little and inexpensive fuel. Cold fusion, apprehending the pull of gravity, a way to capture the strong or weak force of the atom, converting gamma rays flying through space or some other way to achieve energy that is out there, might happen. That box could be put in a car to power vehicles. |
| Let’s say the box can be manufactured in mass production at $300 apiece. Would that make everyone in the world better off? Yes, however that will cause dramatic changes in employment. That will free up 6-12 million people in the USA to do other things. That would also change many business practices that factor in energy cost. Over a short time, the price of everything would likely drop 5-20% with energy cost falling over 99%. That savings would create an increased demand for additional products and services. |  |
 | If this happened, the worst thing that the government could do is to try to ‘fix it’ or ‘help’ those losing their jobs. We would be wise to encourage the government to transform welfare quickly so as not to trap a lot of these people in the means-tested welfare state. It would be wise to let the invisible hand of prices and free enterprise, work out the significant adjustments. Current government regulations are a real problem and taking that monopoly away from the government would be vital in transferring those labor hours to expand existing industries and starting new ones. |
| The economy has plenty of growth potential in industries that currently exists. Most people do not have the money or the willingness to earn the extra cash to take advantage of 99% of what is out there. They currently decide their leisure hours are more important than those things. However, if one desires to put in 40 hours a week of labor and those 40 hours of income can buy more stuff as productivity increases, they will choose to take advantage of more of what is out there. |  |
 | How many people have the best furniture, the best vacations, the pool guy, the maid, the gardener, the clothes, the entertainment, the number and quality of nights on the town? The list of items that you would like; however, the extra labor hours are not worth, is endless. While there will always be new sectors of products and services popping up as they are developed, the vast majority will be greater access to current products and services that also increase in quality. |
| This is where all the new jobs will come from to employ all the out of work energy workers, the displaced factory worker, and the data entry employee that was replaced by an app. Let’s remember that if you replace a person with a robot, that robot cost money. That money is paying for labor to build, power, program and maintain that robot. The money for the total cost of the robot is meant to be less than the money for the employee that was replaced, therefore saving money; however, rarely reducing more than 50% of the cost to the business. |  |
 | That money saved is manifested in higher payroll for the remaining employees, lower cost to consumers, better work conditions, better benefits, and more capital to reinvest in other ventures. The companies that most effectively bring down the cost to produce the product or service will gain market share and likely employ more people. Yes, that does mean that other companies losing market share will lose employees for a net loss. The magic of the free enterprise system is that poorly run businesses lose their ability to command labor hours to better run companies. |
| As labor hours are saved with productivity gains, people are always trying to figure out what people might want to spend their extra money on. This extra money came from increased pay or reduced cost of goods, due to productivity gains. The reason for high business failures is because people often pick wrong. The people who choose right, receive the money from sales to command more of the newly freed labor hours, those that choose wrong don’t get enough sales to command those labor hours. Business failures are vital to free enterprise so that labor hours serve the highest desires of the people who put their money behind those desires. |  |
 | Separating Employment from BenefitsWhether someone is working in the gig economy or transitioning between many jobs over time, they should not be forced to switch health insurance and possibly their network of doctors every time they change jobs. Pensions among other retirement plans should be transitioned to extra pay or just having the company pay into private retirement plans. It is vital that employees control these critical issues of retirement and health care planning. |
