Comments on: Bill Gates on the Future of Employment (It’s Not Pretty)

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 16:24:42 +0000

I’m never sure why captains of industry make this same prediction every generation. Automation and technology CHANGE the employment landscape, but they don’t shrink it. Productivity will go up, costs will continue to be narrowed, but you still need a workforce. Farm machinery was going to destroy the economy. Automated manufacturing was going to send the entire American workforce home. Now software and systems designs are going to render the worker obsolete.

It’s never been true. The workforce adapts to service work, design and entrepreneurial work, financial capital sciences, R&D, whatever. The assumption is that taking away the need to make buggy whips somehow ends the need for every person to make them and they end up unemployed and destitute. No, it just sends them to another industry that’s growing.

By: Far Cold North

Far Cold North — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 18:53:16 +0000

Just remember that it’s Bill Gates forecasting the future. His track record is not very good. In 1995, the first hardcover edition of his “The Road Ahead” essentially failed to mention the internet. Of course, readers quickly picked up on the omission and, amid the outcry, the book was quickly revised. This forecast, like his previous attempt, is so one-dimensional that I think it is of little concern.

By: Walt

Walt — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 18:05:23 +0000

20 years from now the labor demand may be lower, but 20 years from now the number of people seeking employment will also be substantially lower. The huge baby boomer generation has started to retire, and over the next 25 years there will be MANY more people leaving the workforce vs entering the workforce.