Year after year, computer technology continues to become faster, more economical and more pervasive to the point of absurdity. The majority of Americans, at this very moment, have in their pockets computers more powerful than the NASA Guidance Computers used in the Apollo missions. Any American, if he were so inclined, would be able to re-create the entire roster of calculation which landed human kind on the moon.
And yet, amazingly, the pace of advancement accelerates faster still. In coming decades, many analysts foretell a future of self-driven cars and an automated workforce within our economy. Let us, for a moment, consider the impact of automated car technology on the workforce alone. Vivek Wadhwa, in his article “We’re heading towards a jobless future, no matter what the government does”, describes a future where automated vehicles “will eliminate the jobs of taxi, bus, and truck drivers” in the same way that “automobiles displaced the horse and buggy.” He imagines that benefits of a world free of drivers that might “complain, join labor unions, or get distracted” at the hiring cost equal to the “salary of an average Chinese worker”; it is an employers dream.
This technology by itself has the potential to derail large components of the American Economy. Here in New York City, 50,000 or so taxi drivers would find themselves bereft of employment, but the bigger issue is in the commercial trucking industry. Today, for 29 states nation wide, trucking is the most common occupation by far. The trucking industry employs 1,701,500 Americans directly and contributes to supplementary services like the hospitality, restaurant and automotive repair industries. Because the certification process is not academically rigorous or costly, trucking is also a blue collar shelter industry that provides employment to individuals who come from other, less-successful, careers in manufacturing and maintenance. With this considered, it is easy to see how an immediate upgrade from conventional to driverless vehicles could endanger the income of businesses across highways all over the country as unemployed and “obsolete” human drivers strain to rebuild their careers in other industries.
Similar layoffs would likely occur for bus and taxi drivers, as well as rail operators in public transit and freight transportation. However, the issue is not so much that there will be unemployment, but that the unemployment will be functionally complete; the problem is not that jobs will be hard to find, no, like an elevator operator of yesteryear, in the future, truck drivers will simply no longer exist. Also unlike the elevator operator, employees in the transportation industries take up a large portion of the economic development in certain areas of the country. Without truck drivers, much of the midwest will find itself without an alternative means of income. So, simply allowing transport-related occupations to slip into obsolescence will likely bring with it an immense economic impact. However, one has to ask: what can possibly be done for this population of workers who, as it seems, are only educated in one trade and are perilously close to loosing it? How could the transition be anything but abrupt; truck drivers don’t have time for night classes or part-time vocational school, which might make for a smooth career change. With a median pay of $38,200 per year, it is also likely that many do not have savings to rest on, so they could learn a new trade while unemployed. The issue is clear: transportation jobs are vital to the livelihoods of an enormous number of Americans, but at the same time retaining them when a better technology exists makes no financial sense. It is a conflict of interests that necessitates a creative solution.
The problem you present is pretty crazy. I never seriously thought about how important transportation jobs were, or how difficult it would be for these people to find new jobs. I actually don’t think the loss of transportation jobs will be as abrupt as you think it will mainly because of how long it will take for all transportation companies to fully implement driverless transportation. I’m thinking primarily of the cost and the fact that not all companies will be able to afford such a shift right away. However, I also think that fear of driverless vehicles as well as opposition from those same transportation workers will also slow that process. Therefore, I see the transition that you might see as abrupt as gradual enough to allow for a decent (but obviously not perfectly smooth) transition. Essentially, as driverless transportation is slowly implemented, current truck drivers could transition to jobs related to that field that are still available. Then, as the fact that that job is slowly disappearing becomes more obvious, younger people will avoid choosing transportation as a career path, instead aiming toward jobs that survived greater implementation of technology, or that were created because of it. The questions that I think should therefore be asked to address how big or small of a threat this will be are, 1: Does or will related jobs exist that current transportation workers can transition to? and 2: Will our future education systems be sufficient in preparing such a large number of students, no longer able to fall back on transportation as a career, for the jobs that remain or are created during this transition?