> If huge swaths of office workers are suddenly and permanently unemployed, who's going to be hiring all these tradesmen?
"Professionals were 57.8 percent of the total workforce in 2023, with 93 million people working across a wide variety of occupations" [1]. A reasonable worst-case scenario leaves about half of the workforce intact as is. We'd have to assume AI creates zero new jobs or industries, and that none of these people can pivot into doing anything socially useful, to expect them to be rendered unemployable.
> if a significant chunk of the population is made permanently unemployed
They won't. They never have. We'd have years to debate this in the form of unemployment insurance extensions.
[1] https://www.dpeaflcio.org/factsheets/the-professional-and-te...
>We'd have to assume AI creates zero new jobs or industries
Zero American jobs, sure. It's clear that these american industries don't want to invest in America.
>They won't. They never have.
not permanent, but trends don't look good. It doesnt' remain permanent because mass unemployment becomes a huge political issue at some point. As is it now among Gen Z who's completely pivoted in the course of a year.
Increased production has always just lead to more stuff being made, not more people unemployed. When even our grandparents were kids a new shirt was something you’d take care of, as you don’t get a new one very often. Now we head on to Target and throw 5 into our cart on a whim.
Were there less weavers with machines now doing the job (or whatever?). Sure. But it balances out. It’s just bumpy.
The big change here is that it’s hitting so many industries at once, but that already happened with the personal computer.
>The big change here is that it’s hitting so many industries at once, but that already happened with the personal computer.
The PC was pre-NAFTA, and since then we've had at least 3 waves of tech trying to outsource tech jobs (let alone actually impacted jobs like manufacturing) to cut costs. We're now on the current wave.
More stuff can be made... just not in the US.
But nobody can afford stuff.
And yet in the real world people buying labobous at insane rates.
The very same people that 40 years ago would have bought a home instead yes. Now they can no longer do that so might as well blow the money on stuff.
> might as well blow the money on stuff.
Or you know, don't do that and buy a home when you are 40 instead of 25.
People who do save an have good discipline, and don't have children to early still do pretty well.
The culture of 'yolo just get a credit card with 18 and max it out for video game skins' is literally losing people 100000s over their lifetime.
Yes buying a house is not as easy as before, but the doomerism a solution. You can rent and be save. Renting isn't inherently worse for you in the long, that just myth.
> Or you know, don't do that and buy a home when you are 40 instead of 25.
* 400