The Future of Work Might Not Be So Bleak (bloomberg.com) 153
From a report, shared by readers: That said, technology can also favor standard salaried employment. The economists George Baker and Thomas Hubbard, for example, have noted how onboard computers could change U.S. trucking. By monitoring behavior, they would solve a moral hazard problem: Drivers have little incentive to be as careful with company trucks as they would with their own. As a result, more drivers could become employees of companies that buy and maintain fleets, rather than going it alone. They wouldn't have to invest in their own vehicles, which makes them vulnerable to recessions by putting their savings in the same sector as their labor; and they wouldn't be out of pocket and out of work when their trucks broke down. More generally, conventional jobs have a lot of advantages. First, a single worker or group of workers might lack the capital needed to set up a business, or prefer to avoid the stress and risk of running one (consider doctors or dentists who choose to be employees of a medical clinic). Second, business owners might not want their employees to have other bosses -- particularly if the work involves confidential information or team projects that require undivided time and attention. Third, reputations based on ratings might not be reliable: The economist Diane Coyle has shown that the quality of individual consultants can be hard to monitor, at least immediately, whereas a traditional consultancy may be more efficient at "guaranteeing" quality. In short, I believe that salaried employment will not disappear, although it might become less prevalent over time.
What said? (Score:2)
Re:What said? (Score:4, Informative)
Granted, it isn't for everyone, but there are a LOT of us out here who really enjoy the freedom for working vs time off, negotiating bill rates, and being in charge of our own destiny with regard to retirement and investment....and if Obama care would cut the strings a bit, back to being able to pick better fits for our medical insurance needs based on our individual needs.
Even if you don't agree with that last point, the rest should be valid for anyone to respect someone wanting and enjoying.
Govt and some entities seem to want to make it harder for small, even individual businesses and contractors to do well.
Why is that?
Hell, these days, I find that incorporating myself (I have a S-Corp), and doing a bit of extra paperwork, is the best way out there for me to keep the maximum of my hard earned money from the tax man.
I like to take off when I want/need....and don't have to "earn" time off hours...etc.
independent contracting in name only is the issue (Score:2)
independent contracting in name only is the issue look at fedex they got sued over that.
companies can get all of the control of employees but get bypass the liability and they can even profit by renting tools at high prices to workers + sell uniforms at high cost to them.
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I think you miss the elephant in the room as to why one does S-Corp or LLC. To prevent someone sueing you into oblivion. And I did S-Corp because LLC's used to not provide good multi-state protection. I think now they do.
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Well, while that is an excellent reason to, it isn't the only one.
I did S-Corp, to save paying tax $$$.
I have S-Corp, and am sole employee.
Let's say, for example, I bill $100K a year that the corp brings in.
I pay myself $40K as a "reasonable salary"...that the IRS accepts.
Now, over the year, I pay SS and medicare (employment taxes), and state and federal tax on that $40K.
At the end
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Anyone who thinks that they will even have Social Security in the 2030s and beyond is a sucker!!
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Anyone who thinks SS won't be there in 13 years, is betting that the US government will default on their debts.
Social Security might be around for a while yet but I will be very surprised if it doesn't eventually become need based where if you have assets or retirement savings you have to use that first before qualifying for social security.
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Correct. Don't forget that the group of people near or over 65 has a very high voting participation rate. It's politically dangerous to try to screw up Social Security and Medicare.
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Good Point.
But, in my case, it took a good number of years working w2 before I could make the jump to 1099....so, I have a decent SS number when I hit retirement.
And as others have pointed out, SS may not be here for many of us. I'm at the age where I will likely just "sqeek" by and be able to get my full amount for my full lifetime, but for younger folks, man..I dunno if I'd try to depend on it for anything less than
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Even now , with the S-Corp scenario I described earlier...I still pay SS...I just don't pay SS and medicare on everything I bill....as opposed to paying % of SS and medicare on everything a regular W2 employee pays, or even a LLC pays...
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Social Security benefits are based on something like your top 35 years, adjusted for inflation. You're reducing your benefits by not paying SS on everything. Whether this is a good idea is something only you can decide.
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Well, I"d rather take the extra money, invest it to make up for what SS may not pay me....
You don't get rich working for someone else (Score:5, Interesting)
The tax system is biased towards those who risk capital.
This will remove one of the only and best options for upward class mobility. This is a real problem when combined with the joke standards for public STEM education, the other real way out/up.
Interesting times.
The tax system is biased (Score:5, Insightful)
STEM isn't going to get you out/up given the amount of outsourcing going on. Only the very brightest can overcome that barrier and not everybody can be a genius, if they could the definition of genius would change.
If you're referencing that Chinese insult about living in interesting times though you're spot on. Between automation, general attacks on education in the form of funding cuts and our endless wars the working class is boned.
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Those you are referring to, is a very TINY minority of businesses and business owners out there in the US.
The majority of businesses and employers are SMALL businesses....they don't get any of those per
Re: The tax system is biased (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be agreeing. That TINY minority basically controls the government, along with the majority of the nation's wealth.
Small businesses are competition without the resources to buy competing congressmen, so they get steamrolled. Similarly consumer and worker's rights advocates are threats to corporate bottom lines and thus get ignored or attacked based on the current strategy (Corporations being the tools the ultra-wealthy use to shield themselves from liability for their actions. Normal people's investments are irrelevant to the corporate agenda - the 99% collectively own less than 1% of stocks.)
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And? All those accounts have a person behind them eventually. Even the big corporate ownership webs, etc, eventually can be traced back to individual human beings. I couldn't find a vaguely credible source making a claim for anything lower than ~40% ownership by the 1% in the last decade, and most are *much* higher.
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As someone who's been an entrepreneur his whole life, you have no idea what you are talking about.
Operating your own business is the best way to have control over your life, and it represents the bulk of the economy. Small business.
Those rules benefit the uber rich, but they also benefit the guy down the street with the delivery truck business.
Re: The tax system is biased (Score:5, Insightful)
The bulk of the US economy is in high-end finance. Much of the rest is tied up in multinational corporations. Small businesses are likely responsible for the bulk of *employment*, and even of most local economies, but are barely a blip on the radar of economic activity at the national scale.
It's an easy mistake to make - one of the effects of the extreme wealth inequality is that, unless you're one of the extremely wealthy, you'll rarely see even see the immediate ripples of the flow of real money - it has no direct impact on your life, and you have almost no voice in the rules that govern it.
Make no mistake - those rules are tilted *heavily* toward the ultra-rich. You may think you benefit somewhat, but only because you're not obviously on the "getting screwed" end of the spectrum - which is by design. So long as they can convince you that the tax system benefits you, you'll support it. But ask yourself this - if you're getting a tax benefit, and they're getting an even bigger tax benefit (proportionally), who has the competitive advantage?
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The bulk of the US economy is in high-end finance.
Bullcrap. Finance is 8% of the economy, and most of that is not "high-end".
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... [small business] represents the bulk of the economy.
This is technically true per government classification.
FWIW, Goldman Sachs, the wealthiest investment bank on the planet, is classified as a "small business" by the US government.
So, technically true, yet misleading. One might even start to believe it's intentionally so.
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Operating your own business is the best way to have control over your life
A lot of small business owners have a poor work/life balance. If your primary motivation in life is money, then you probably are fine with this and would be working lots of hours as an employee anyway.
But a lot of us enjoy having x hours a week at work and weekends/evenings off.
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But a lot of us enjoy having x hours a week at work and weekends/evenings off.
Yeah, so we can work on our side gigs, like programming computer games and trying to get books published. Wait, that sounds terrible ...
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Life is biased, not just the tax system. And not just towards the uber-rich.
Employees have always been near the bottom of the wealth spectrum. It's natural.
I know a kit who started mowing lawns for people. He made $30 per lawn, about an hour's work. That's a lot better than minimum wage.
This kid got so many customers he couldn't do them all, so he started hiring friends. Not only did he make money on his own work, but on the work of others.
When he went to college, he sold his business to a landscaping compa
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Re: The tax system is biased (Score:2)
Wow, $15/hr, taxed as self-employment. That's worse pay than flipping burgers at McDonald's. What a great "business"!
Are you a business owner today, or an employee? I've been both.
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Yup. That's exactly what I did (except I only charged $15). I can look out my front window and see half a dozen business opportunities that I wonder why people aren't taking.
Most people aren't primarily motivated by making money. Or else everyone would have two or three jobs and sleep 2-4 hours a day, right?
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Most people aren't primarily motivated by making money. Or else everyone would have two or three jobs and sleep 2-4 hours a day, right?
They sure like complaining about not having enough of it. That's one way of getting it.
Back to reality (Score:2)
towards elite rent seekers. Owners, not workers. Those folks don't risk anything.
Bullshit they don't risk anything. If you think that entrepreneurs don't risk anything then you've never tried to start or run a company. Owners of companies generally live a life of low grade terror because of the vast number of things that can go wrong and the amount of money they stand to lose.
Their loans are guaranteed, they've got insider information given verbally at country clubs, laws don't apply to them and if all else fails we've given them so much wealth that if they go down they take everything with them.
That's a quaint picture you have that has little correlation to reality for all but a tiny handful of business owners in rare cases. Go ahead and try to get an unsecured loan even if you have a lot of money. I
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towards elite rent seekers. Owners, not workers.
Well, that's capitalism for you, which is not about profit driven economy, but about who owns the means of production, i.e. the capital.
Re: The tax system is biased (Score:2)
Of course not. Billionaires assiduously avoid ersonal interaction with us proles. Kinda like farmers don't socialize with the cattle they are planning to slaughter.
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This will remove one of the only and best options for upward class mobility.
Maybe. TFA is predicting that AI will lead to narrow ownership and more wage employment. Many others (perhaps more) are predicting the opposite: That AI and cheap automation will make it easier than ever to work independently.
A factory costs millions. But you can buy a 3D printer for $199. When you are ready to scale, you can outsource to Foxconn. Then you can sell on eBay and Amazon.
You can run an ANN on the GPU in your laptop, or rent an array of TPUs in Google's cloud.
It has never been easier. We m
Re: You don't get rich working for someone else (Score:2)
Comparing a consumer 3D printer to a factory is like comparing a hand-cranked mimeograph machine to a commercial offset press.
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If you invest capital, your profits are taxed as capital gains, which is less than ordinary income. If you actually work for a living, you pay FICA taxes, and so your pay is more heavily taxed than, say dividends. (You're building up Social Security credit, which may or may not be worth it, but it's not your choice.)
Wut? (Score:2)
>They wouldn't have to invest in their own vehicles, which makes them vulnerable to recessions by putting their savings in the same sector as their labor
Owning their own vehicles means they can enjoy reduced income during a recession, rather than losing their job entirely.
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If they outright own their truck. If they're still making payments, goodbye everything.
Not exactly (Score:5, Informative)
That said, this guy is full of crap. Automation will put truckers out of business. And even if it didn't there's no way the trucking companies are giving an arrangement that puts all the cost/risk on somebody else. Not unless the government steps in, and I know I'll get dinged for partisanship here but the Republicans control every single branch of government. I'm not holding my breath.
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Automation will put truckers out of business.
Well, it will change the job to maintaining/assisting the robot drivers in a convoy.
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Pretty much, although I think it looks like the drivers will become security guards who have to travel between cities.
The maintenance and repair functions will likely be handled the way they are now, which, I think, means tow trucks and garages for repairs. I'm not sure how most shipping companies currently handle vehicle maintenance (in-house or outsourced). It seems likely there would likely be fewer guards than there currently are drivers, which will driven by cost-cutting measures.
The interesting par
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Here's the USA Today article:
https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-forced-into-debt-worked-past-exhaustion-left-with-nothing/
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They're low paid
My friend makes $150k/year. But then he's certified to haul everything except nuclear waste. It takes a lot of training and 15+ years experience.
Gross or Net? (Score:2)
There's good money in team driving, but it's also kinda crap work. I knew a husband/wife team that did it but besides that it's rough.
If you're a trainer you're taking your life in your hands. The newbies have a high rate of crashes. You're safer in Afghanistan, Iraq or doing undersea welding. It pays well because it's dangerous as hell.
Source: I've got several friends and the aforementioned husband/wife team in truck d
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Completely bullshit.
If you had the cash to buy one of these things outright with no loan on it, sure. But almost nobody can afford that. Instead people have loans on these things, and every minute they're not rolling costs you money.
I've known a couple in independent drivers who owned their own rigs, and none of them could afford to miss any wages, or they'd risk having the bank foreclos
Re:Wut? (Score:4, Interesting)
You seem to act like this is something "new"??
I've been in the workforce for a few decades now, and the W2 job by a company that gave loyalty to its employees was long gone before I started working.
There has been nothing like company loyalty to employees for ages now, with VERY very few exceptions.
Perhaps some employees have been loyal on the mistaken notion that loyalty would be returned to me...but it really hasn't been the case. All employees have been expendable for a long time now.
That's why as soon as I could, I got into contracting.
I figure if you have as much loyalty from your employer as a contractor, have the job security of a contractor ...
Then you might as well get the BILL RATE of a contractor, you know?
Out of touch with reality (Score:2)
Nearly every trucking company has more trucks than drivers due to wages, not a fear of truck damage.
Professional driving will soon be mostly gone... (Score:1)
... as self driving trucks, cargo ships, taxis, etc. will be introduced to the market in the coming years. Use other examples.
Um...so you believe the future is bleak? (Score:2)
Um...so you DO believe the future is bleak?
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Bloomberg quotes respected academics speculating on potentially less bleak outcomes for workers, allowing capital hoarding vultures to feel good about more capital hoarding.
Honestly, a lot of times I think that the financial world really only listens to economists to the extent that economists provide academically based opinions that validate the financial world's capital hoarding.
It's like politicians like to listen to religious figures to the extent that religious figures provide opinions that align with
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Re: Um...so you believe the future is bleak? (Score:2)
You've got yours, so screw those deplorables.
How long will this phase last? (Score:1)
I was in an antique car and carriage museum recently. There were some beautiful old carriages and vintage cars. In between the two eras were a few mashups - carriage bodies which had been fitted with a small gas engine and a steering tiller. The worst of both worlds, this technology was clumsy and short-lived. This image came to mind when reading about installing computers in trucks but keeping the driver. How long will this last until self-driving trucks push them into a niche in some museum?
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Welcome to Slashdot - hope you get an account and stay awhile. Very entertaining!
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Not long. Maybe there will still be a "loader" on the truck, badly paid and with really bad working conditions, because that may be cheaper than a robot. But the driver is going to go extinct not so so long from now in most commercial settings.
trains still lot's of manual switch (Score:2)
trains still lot's of manual switch both freight sidings and commuter parking areas outlining stations.
Stupid article (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of random postulation in TFA, with little useful substance. Clear that the authors needed to write about something, and this was something. Even if they didn't know anything about the topic, and couldn't be bothered to learn.
It's still not clear, however, which human tasks computers will be able to replace, and what the effects will be.
Oh really? Then what is the point of your guesswork here?
The most difficult tasks for computers involve unforeseen problems that do not match any programmed routine....the example of a driverless car that sees a little ball pass in front of it. This ball poses no danger to the car, which therefore has no reason to slam on the brakes. A human being, on the other hand, will probably foresee that the ball may be followed by a young child, and will therefore have a different reaction. The driverless car will not have enough experience to react appropriately.
Yep. No idea what they're talking about. It's like each driverless car has to learn how to drive on its own, and can't possibly learn from all of the other ones on the road. And there's no possibility that the car would detect the cross-traffic of a child which is large enough to trigger auto-breaking far before a human could notice and react. Even under parked cars, which is technology we currently have. Can I get paid to write about things I have no clue about? How do I sign up for that job?
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Even under parked cars
That depends on the location of the sensors on the actual car, doesn't it? I'm really not optimistic about a car company spending extra pennies on sensors they deem as merely 'nice to have'. Yes, they will consider detecting a child running out from behind a parked car as merely 'nice to have'.
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Bumper mounted radar can already bounce off pavement, hit something, and return. It's already working that way for highway driving - will slow or stop a car if the car in front of the car in front of you is slowing down, but the one in front of you isn't. But even if that doesn't work for pedestrians, you're likely only doing 30mph if you're passing parked cars. In that case, the automated braking can probably stop in a car length or two. The amount of damage in a collision at that point is largely mitigate
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Not to mention that robots will follow the rules. That means safe following distances and logical decisions, following the speed limit and staying in their lanes. And yes, sometimes these are actually less safe choices, but not often.
Humans are bad drivers. Even the median human is a bad driver. Even the top 25% of human drivers have bad moments and bad days.
You said the magic word: consistently
That's what robot driving will get us. Something that humans are really, really bad at.
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>Yes, they will consider detecting a child running out from behind a parked car as merely 'nice to have'.
Eventually, I'm sure.
Early on, when they're trying desperately to sell us all on the safety of these premium features so we let them sell their lucrative new cash cow? I doubt it.
And frankly, even "eventually" I suspect it'll only take a few thousand kids getting hit by the cost-cutting companies before we get laws requiring such "niceties" be included. Still a net win for children's lives - we're c
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Can I get paid to write about things I have no clue about? How do I sign up for that job?
The problem with that idea is that the pay of such people is ridiculously bad, even for the utter crap most of them produce.
Can't get paid for stupidity (Score:2)
Not any more. That job has been taken over by AI.
And besides, this is Slashdot. We've been doing it for free for 20 years.
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Can I get paid to write about things I have no clue about? How do I sign up for that job?
Email the slashdot editors for advice!
That's too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
In short, I believe that salaried employment will not disappear, although it might become less prevalent over time.
That's too bad. I was looking forward to the future with a 4 hour work week, and robots doing all the actual work, sitting on the beach being served pina coladas by a robot.
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Err...this robot thing can go too far!!
I'd rather be served drinks at the beach by a cute bartender with nice tits straining against her bikini top.
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I believe there always will be bartenders.
And there always will etablissments where attractive women (or the other sex if you prefer that) serve the drinks, in various states/variations of (un)dressedness.
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I don't really care what you believe
Nitpicking again? s/believe/convinced/
instead tell me your reasoning.
Barkeeper is actually a fun job (in a bar or pub), if I would receive UBI, I guess working as bar keeper in the evening would be my first choice.
There always will be "the rich" and they (and others) always will like "to look at skin".
There always will be people who want to wake desire, they enjoy it, and fulfill it (for a price?), or play with the looks of their audience.
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Nitpicking again? s/believe/convinced/
Nah, it's totally fine with me if you believe whatever you do. That's up to you.
Barkeeper is actually a fun job (in a bar or pub),
that's true it can be like a social event with you at the center.
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I believe there always will be bartenders.
Yes. They'll just be robots.
By far the most rational justification here. Well done.
Although I suspect that there will be some ultra-rich who will want the status of actual humans and will be willing to pay enough to make sure they have staff. And I suspect that some ultra-rich will want only robots around, because actual humans are not to their liking.
The rest of us will get robots, because they are cheap.
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I'd rather be served drinks at the beach by a cute bartender with nice tits straining against her bikini top.
Don't worry, there will be a robot for that too.
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Right? Something something 'basic income,' something something 'Star Trek.'
At least that's what I keep hearing from lazy, skill-less morons.
Economists are amoral jackasses (Score:3, Insightful)
And they cannot stop projecting that damn behavior onto everyone and everything.
" Drivers have little incentive to be as careful with company trucks as they would with their own"
This is blatantly false. People have many other incentives than the merely financial. The fact that we recognize when someone has a good work ethic, is a staunch keeper of their word, is very conscientious, all of these traits reveal non-financial motivation. Sure, some of that clearly will translate into personal gain in the form of the likelihood of continued employment, but not everyone has to stop and think "will my job be helped or hurt if I don't take care of my employer's vehicle?"
And yet time and again, economist measure people's behavior, intentions, motives, and goals almost solely in financial terms and then draw ridiculously biased conclusion based upon that faulty reasoning.
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"Drivers have little incentive to be as careful with company trucks as they would with their own."
I agree that statement is bull. Most warehouses use rental trucks, but I worked for a Fortune 500 company that owned its own trucks. Despite owning the vehicles, the company cared less for them than the drivers did, given how difficult it was to schedule regular maintenance.
One box truck in particular, the one I used to load, had no functioning air brakes and would regularly roll forward out of the loading dock while trying to stack pallets.
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The companies often want their trucks to be driven hard and abused. I see them around here, hitting speed bumps without bothering to slow down. What matters to them is getting their deliveries done on time. I don't know if they just buy new vehicles when the suspension dies or if the rest of the vehicle doesn't even last that long.
Economists are Stupid People (Score:4, Insightful)
These two geniuses ignore the fact that "onboard computers" are only an intermediary step towards no drivers at all, which is clearly the goal of the trucking industry.
I can't wait for their next article, which is titled, "Being a Slave is Not So Bad Because You Get Free Room and Board".
Slavery has more than one dimension (Score:2)
Labor is not the only motivation to enslave. There is dominance, sexual and otherwise; there are bragging rights, pride, ego. Etc.
For instance, when someone ties their partner to the bedposts, they aren't doing it to get them to work harder.
WTF - trucking example so wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
That little trucking example was incredibly wrong on several points.
1 - the trucks will be autonomous, no drivers, no jobs
2 - what jobs there will be will not be secure. The piece just assumes working for someone else means full time secure work. Not part time, on demand work, which more and more of this type or work is. Needing for drivers for deliveries is generally seasonal. With several seasonal markets, be it packages, equipment or seasonal goods.
3 - owning less equipment means you are more at the whim of the job market and can be exploited for low wages
Agree, only more so (Score:2)
And will only last until the robots can do the deliveries. Likewise, security roles, vehicle repair, dispatching, loading, transitions between rail and truck chassis for modular carriers, etc.
There's no reason - at all - to assume that the low level job market going forward will be as rich in employment opportunities. Every time any idea like that has been put forward, it's been full of huge holes in reasoning. No exception this time, either.
It's bull
Capitalism and Corporatism OUT OF CONTROL (Score:4, Interesting)
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Automation has made MY work much better (Score:2)
We programmers have been automating our own work for decades now. One could argue that we are working ourselves out of a job, but somehow there always seems to be more work--more automating--to do!
Back in the 30s, Keynes predicted we would all be working four-hour days by now. Somehow, that didn't quite work out.
https://www.theguardian.com/bu... [theguardian.com]
I love all the automated tools I can now use every day, to do the drudge work I used to have to do manually. Who would want to go back to those days? What actually h
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I am confused about one of the words you used, I must have mistaken its meaning.
What does 'several' mean?
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You know...if our society comes down to this and actually dependent upon this tech providing all....we're all pretty much fucked when something as natural and unpredictable as a solar flare knocks out the power grid for any good length of time.
That's not even counting terrorist hackers fscki
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You know...if our society comes down to this and actually dependent upon this tech providing all....we're all pretty much fucked when something as natural and unpredictable as a solar flare knocks out the power grid for any good length of time.
In 1870, 90% of the US labor force were farmers.
Today it's less than 2%, and it seems like less than 5% in total of our labor goes into farming, chemicals, and so forth. We use GMO, pesticides, tractors, and the like. A single individual can feed themselves for about 3% of the median income, although it's closer to 9% because people eat out-of-home a lot more than they used to--McDonalds is food and servants to cook and clean for you, plus the rent of the building, all on a time share.
Do you realize h
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Your model is grossly incomplete and a pure fantasy as a result. If you have that truck driver supervising, say, 10 trucks (which is on the low end), then you also have 9 unemployed truck drivers. And you seem to completely miss that most people need "work" as a source of meaning in their lives. Food and shelter is not enough, longer term.
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And you seem to completely miss that most people need "work" as a source of meaning in their lives.
No, they don't.
Most people need work as a source of money to buy food, a roof over their head, clothes for their children and so on.
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Fair enough; however, most people also will want to work for economic reasons.
Take my program of Universal Social Security as a postulate. A strong welfare state: if you don't work, your two-adult household gets minimum wage (untaxed), plus WIC, SNAP, housing assistance, all this efficient welfare that's largely-diminished by the Universal Dividend. It's ... livable.
If you do work, well, you keep getting the Universal Dividend. Minimum wage is pinned to twice the Dividend for a single adult--hence t
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If you have one truck driver doing the work of ten mechanics while what amounts to a fraction of a bunch of other people doing the work of the driver (the engineer who makes a design replicated millions of times; the factory workers who make millions of trucks per year; etc.), then you have, say, 1/5 of a person's working hours doing what 1 person did before.
For simplicity's sake, say it's one trucker doing the work of five.
You only have to pay one trucker.
Okay, there are a lot of independent shipping
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You really do not have a systems view of this at all, you just see some isolated details. This causes you to fail to understand the issue.
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Oh, well. Another Dunning-Kruger far-left....
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Apparently, the future of work is driving a truck for somebody else's trucking business. Yes, this implies the article is written for AIs.
Re: (Score:2)
slave labor and slave wages continue to exist.
As well as the Amish.