CHALLENGING FUTURE FOR LABOR – AT 9:09 A.M. ET:   Robotics are here.  The robots refuse to go home.  For working Americans, they pose an enormous and painful challenge.  From the Washington Post: 

Over the next 13 years, the rising tide of automation will force as many as 70 million workers in the United States to find another way to make money, a new study from the global consultancy McKinsey predicts.

That means nearly a third of the American workforce could face the need to pick up new skills or enter different fields in the near future, said the report's co-author, Michael Chui, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute who studies business and economics.

“We believe that everyone will need to do retraining over time,” he said.

The shift could displace people at every stage of their career, Chui said.

By 2030, the researchers estimated, the demand for office support workers in the U.S. will drop by 20 percent. That includes secretaries, paralegals and anyone in charge of administrative tasks.

During the same period, the need for people doing “predictable physical work” — construction equipment installation and repair, card dealing, security guarding, dishwashing and food preparation, for example — will fall by 30 percent.

And...

The jobs most at risk involve repetitive tasks. About half the duties workers handle globally could be automated, according to the report, though less than 5 percent of occupations could be entirely taken over by computers.

Caretakers, psychologists, artists, writers — anyone who relies on empathy or creativity at work — can expect to have the most job security as automation continues to spread, said Jason Hong, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

“Artificial intelligence is now taking over even white collar jobs,” he said, “but those that require lots of human touch and communication won’t be easily automated.”

COMMENT:  So the future will belong to shrinks and writers.  I'm leaving.

December 2, 2017