{"id":24838,"date":"2014-03-26T07:44:55","date_gmt":"2014-03-26T12:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=24838"},"modified":"2014-03-26T07:46:17","modified_gmt":"2014-03-26T12:46:17","slug":"minimum-wage-jobs-becoming-more-likely-to-be-replaced-by-robots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/03\/26\/minimum-wage-jobs-becoming-more-likely-to-be-replaced-by-robots\/","title":{"rendered":"Minimum-wage jobs becoming more likely to be replaced by robots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone seems to want to raise the minimum wage right now (well, everyone in the media certainly), but it might backfire spectacularly<\/a> on the very people it’s supposed to help:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s become commonplace for computers to replace American workers \u2014 think about those on an assembly line and in toll booths \u2014 but two University of Oxford professors have come to a surprising conclusion: Waitresses, fast-food workers and others earning at or near the minimum wage should also be on alert.<\/p>\n

President Obama\u2019s proposal to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour could make it worthwhile for employers to adopt emerging technologies to do the work of their low-wage workers. But can a robot really do a janitor\u2019s job? Can software fully replace a fast-food worker? Economists have long considered these low-skilled, non-routine jobs as less vulnerable to technological replacement, but until now, quantitative estimates of a job\u2019s vulnerability have been missing from the debate.<\/p>\n

Based on a 2013 paper by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne of Oxford<\/a> [PDF], occupations in the U.S. that pay at or near the minimum wage \u2014 that\u2019s about one of every six workers in the U.S. \u2014 are much more susceptible to \u201ccomputerization,\u201d or as defined by the authors, \u201cjob automation by means of computer-controlled equipment.\u201d The researchers considered a time frame of 20 years, and they measured whether such jobs could be computerized, not whether these jobs will be computerized. The latter involves assumptions about economic feasibility and social acceptance that go beyond mere technology.<\/p>\n

The minimum-wage occupations that Frey and Osborne think are most vulnerable include, not surprisingly, telemarketers, sales clerks and cashiers. But also included are occupations that employ a large share of the low-wage workforce, such as waiters and waitresses, food-preparation workers and cooks. If the computerization of these low-wage jobs becomes feasible, and if employers find it economical to invest in such labor-saving technology, there will be huge implications for the U.S. labor force.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to Colby Cosh,<\/a> who said “McDonald\u2019s is going to turn into vending machines. Can\u2019t say this enough. McDonald\u2019s\u2026vending machines.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone seems to want to raise the minimum wage right now (well, everyone in the media certainly), but it might backfire spectacularly on the very people it’s supposed to help: It\u2019s become commonplace for computers to replace American workers \u2014 think about those on an assembly line and in toll booths \u2014 but two University […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,15],"tags":[95,96,36],"class_list":["post-24838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-technology","tag-jobs","tag-minimumwage","tag-robots"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6sC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24838"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24840,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24838\/revisions\/24840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}