A Much Needed Paradigm Shift in Our Working Life

I finally got round to watching I Robot… I know I’m like so two thousand and late. I enjoyed the film and didn’t dwell on any obvious flaws like I often find myself doing with films nowadays, but one thing stuck with me. If robots start to take all the unskilled jobs, what will the unskilled workers do? Is it crazy to think that in 5 years robots will be emptying bins, delivering parcels, and cooking for us? I think it is unlikely. But what isn’t crazy is that computer software will be eliminating certain jobs. As software gets more powerful, easier to use, and accessible then the need for certain mid-level employment goes down. Why employ a translator when google translate or this can do a pretty good job? Why hire an accountant when you have user-friendly accountant software to do the sums for a fraction of the cost? Over two years ago, a robot made a scientific discovery by creating a hypothesis, testing it, and drawing valuable conclusions. Science has long been the pursuit of the educated - an education that isn’t cheap, especially if jobs are taken by machines willing to work 24 hours a day for no pay.

I think mass unemployment will be the defining problem of the 21^st century and I think technology will play a large role. More and more jobs are becoming unnecessary due to technology coming on heaps and bounds and replacing our feeble minds and bodies. One example is this website – I designed and made it myself. This was unthinkable 10 years ago unless I was a computer programmer. Now it just took a bit of reading, a bit of patience, and a small amount of money for the domain. I didn't pay a human directly for anything.

Surely this new technology is creating jobs as well, right? Well yes. But it is creating a fraction of the jobs it is eliminating. There is no point looking to the industrial revolution and blindly saying that technology creates as many jobs as it takes away. The industrial revolution led to machines doing the heavy lifting. This current technological revolution will lead to machines doing the heavy thinking. The will have the technical knowhow and precise ability to perform tasks that have long been only capable in highly trained humans. The jobs that will be created will be highly skilled that let’s face it, not everyone can manage. They take years of training and many years of experience before you can start earning. Will future jobs be for the highly trained and highly driven? The simple jobs are taken by machines and people in poverty, who can't afford to educate themselves for 5 years because they need to look after their family, will simply be left with nothing they can do.

If we don’t do something drastic to halt this decline in jobs then what will happen? Business output will stay the same even though businesses sack their employees, replacing them with tech, while reducing their cost. The business owners will be making more and more profits. This means, if the trend continues, that a smaller proportion of the population will be earning while more are left in unemployment. It is going to be a real social issue. People unemployed will feel worthless and bored while taking handouts from the government. The employed people will feel angry at the unemployed people for taking more of their hard-owned money by increased tax rates. It’s a wealth gap that will be growing larger over this century and tension will grow with it.

The solution?

One way to manage this issue of growing unemployment is to reduce working hours and ban overtime. This will delay the inevitable decline in employment brought on by technology and other factors, as well as spreading the wealth around (shocking idea I know!). Currently we are supposed to have a maximum working week of 48 hours in the EU. I know people working 90 hour weeks in London. According to figures from Labour Force Survey Summer Quarter 2011, in the UK alone, we are doing over 2 billion UNPAID hours of work a year. This equates to ONE MILLION full time jobs. I spoke of sharing the wealth around but what I really mean is a redistribution of work.

The average working week in the UK in 2011 was 42.7 hours, up from 41.4 hours in 2008 (these values do not include unpaid overtime btw). An increase of 1.3 hours in the last 3 economically uncertain years. I don’t blame workers for this. They are forced into working harder and doing unpaid overtime for fear of losing their job to one of the 2.6 million currently unemployed people. That unemployment number could be reduced by 38% if everyone refused to do unpaid overtime. The number could be lowered further if the maximum allowed working week was fewer than 48 hours a week.

This would mean that the current working population would have more free time and the unemployed would find work. But surely hiring more people to do the same amount of work would cost more money and take more work hours? Sure it would. But the reduced amount of people on government handouts would decrease so tax could be lowered. If the government gave tax breaks to companies that hired more people for less time, then they would not lose money. The current employed people wouldn’t lose money either by working fewer hours because they would also pay less tax. A tax policy that stated “if a company decreases its working week to fewer than 25 hours for every employee and hired at least 35% more staff then they will receive a tax credit. These employees would also receive tax relief for working shorter hours.” This sort of taxing could be used as a financial incentive to encourage companies to adopt a shorter working week until it became commonplace. I can’t see a flaw in my suggestion, can you?

Maybe I am oversimplifying people’s greed because of my own lack of financial ambition. But then maybe the people that will choose to work at these companies that encourage shorter working hours will share the same values as me. The belief that money isn’t everything and having more time with family and friends is a happier way to spend our lives. I would take a pay cut to work an engineering job for 25 hours a week, where I would still be given a similar amount of work but just had to be more efficient with my work time. This sort of employment could lead to a cultural shift where perhaps money isn’t the driving force in most people’s lives. I strongly believe that a shorter working week is what is needed for our society to grow, both economically and socially.

Also what about the people struggling to make ends meet while they work 40 hours plus a week? I think it is clear that a fairer waging structure lowering the disparity between top earners and low earners is needed. 1 in 5 people in the UK earn less than the Living Wage. Are these huge companies that pay their workers this pittance victimised by our government by a higher tax bill? No. They are likely to pay no tax or very little tax, as they have the accountants to worm their way out of it. I'm boycotting Starbucks for one. These huge companies ripping off their employees and our tax system are the real scroungers in this country, not people on welfare. If companies like Starbucks paid more then it wouldn't be financially viable to stay on benefits rather than working.

A reduction in living costs in the UK is also something that needs serious consideration. Unfortunately we are in an arms race of sorts with each other at the moment. People are working longer and harder but are paying more money for houses and rent. If we restricted working hours, we would need the government to force a drop in house prices and rent costs. I believe the second home being used as an investment has driven house and rent prices to unsustainable levels and it needs to be lowered by government laws. Unfortunately the law makers will probably have at least two houses so it isn't in their best interest to consider this. A lot of people would find this difficult, as their pension pot shrinks, but not as difficult as it will be in 30 years when the unemployed revolt because there simply isn’t enough work to go around. The riots in the UK in 2011 will look like a picnic compared with what could be coming.

Another idea to consider is that if technological increases are really causing unemployment then how about taxing the technology? For every job lost by a computer, the equivalent amount of government handout given to that newly unemployed person should be taken from that business by tax. This would be a novel way of sharing the wealth created by massive companies that only have a minimal human work force but thousands of machines. Perhaps it is too soon for such a drastic measure as this would surely slow innovation, but I don’t see this as an unworkable solution in the long term.

Why do we need a paradigm shift? We need a change to the basic assumptions of work, such as the 40 hour week. A change in people's perception of what a fair minimum wage is. We need to consider that accumulating possessions and buying new things because we can is not going to bring happiness, and shouldn't be the ultimate aim of our society. We have technology so let's use it and improve it to help us cut back on our work. When we went from a 60 hour working week to a 40 hour one, the industry experts thought it would be an end to progression and cause massive problems. It didn't. We adapted, we had more family time, and leisure industries grew. It's time we rejected the 40 hour week.

I have outlined what I believe may be the biggest economic issue of this century and how we can go about solving it. I honestly think I could write another 2000 words on the subject, however a lot of it has been said before, and until we listen to top economist’s advice (who suggest a 20 hour working week!) I feel I am wasting my time. This TED video talks about the loss of employment due to robots, albeit with a more positive spin. Thanks for reading.

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