What (or who) destroy jobs

[tw]

Common sense proves reality. ATMs cause bank tellers to lose their jobs. Telephone switching equipment put operators into unemployment.

From the Economist of 15 Jun 2011:

... right-of-center bloggers link[ed] gleefully to ... the hoary fallacy that machines create unemployment, ... As it happens, theory and reality agree in this case. ATMs have not in fact displaced bank tellers. According to this 2004 Charles Fishman article in Fast Company:
At the dawn of the self-service banking age in 1985, for example, the United States had 60,000 automated teller machines and 485,000 bank tellers. In 2002, the United States had 352,000 ATMs and 527,000 bank tellers. ATMs notwithstanding, banks do a lot more than they used to and have a lot more branches than they used to.

How can this be? If work takes less employees, then fewer jobs exist. A classic example of how Limbaugh, Fox News, Trump, and other extremists manipulate the least educated among us. We know from economic history that less workers on every job means more jobs. But those using common sense and soundbyte logic (those manipulated by extremists) would never understand.

From the Economist of 15 Aug 2015:

Angst about automation typically focuses on the substitution effect, whereby jobs once done by people are taken over by machines—the fate of the Luddites. The current fear is that ever more versatile robots will substitute for labour on a scale never seen before. However, previous experience shows that focusing on substitution shows only part of the picture. According to David Autor ... those with a gloomy view of automation are disregarding the many jobs that come into being thanks to the existence of whizz-bang new machines. Only that ... can explain why the share of America's population in work rose during the 20th century despite dazzling technological advances, or why the drop in agricultural employment, from 40% of the workforce to 2%, did not lead to mass unemployment.

Between 1980 and 2010 ... the number of bank clerks in America actually increased despite the rapid spread of the cashpoint. That was because the IT revolution not only enabled machines to dispense cash; it also allowed clerks to work out what extra financial products customers might be interested in and process applications for them. The new jobs that technology makes possible ... more than compensate for those lost through substitution. It is just easier to identify the disappearing but familiar occupations than it is to foresee the new ones created in their stead.

Bottom line. If spread sheets measure value of a job using monetary benchmarks, then jobs can be destroyed. If jobs and machines are measured by value, then jobs are created. That is the problem. Concepts taught in business schools cannot measure value or productivity. If a worker works less hours, does that means he is more productive? If costs are reduced, did productivity increase. No such relationship exists. Value does not appear on any business school parameters until four or ten years later.

If bosses do not come from where the work gets done (as routinely demonstrated on a CBS TV show called "Undercover Boss"), then jobs will be lost four or ten years later.

When business school graduates blamed workers and forced a faster assembly line, then American cars sucked while quality decreased. What did patriotic Americans in Japan and Europe do? Replaced workers with machines - so that workers could work just as slow, make a better product, could innovate, and deserved higher pay. Those machines also made possible advances such as cars that never need wheel alignment, tune ups, and other once expensive and now unnecessary maintenance. IOW jobs increased because fewer employees made a superior product. And because they did not use business school logic; instead learned from people who come from where the work gets done such as W E Deming.

That is the difference between Luddites who use soundbytes and wacko extremist rhetoric to fear enemies everywhere (ie immigrants). These same people were also told Saddam had WMDs. That soundbyte alone proved it was true. Verses moderates (patriotic Americans - no matter what their national citizenship) who first learn how stuff really works while ignoring soundbyte logic.