I’ve had some interesting conversations with manufacturing facilities this month and I’ve heard that it is still hard to get people to come to work or come to work consistently. Why doesn’t anyone want to work anymore in certain jobs. Is this repercussions of people being sent home and getting stimmy checks? Are they still getting some sort of stimmy that is helping cover that monthly nut to eat/live/survive and then do odd jobs to get some extra cash? Did they find a less demanding job that pays more? Did they start their own gig and now make enough to be self employed? I can see the “living-wage” argument where people are saying “fuck-it, why bust my ass when I cant afford to live and get to the job”
The Slow Shift
Automation will not replace eliminate your job in the quick sense where you have your job and 2 months later you are out. Instead it will creep in slowly replacing the work force needed to do a job but there is no workforce available.
I was speaking with a food facility. One of my questions was how often the lines run and if they are based on orders with how many days a week they run. They said it’s not an order or demand problem, it’s a getting people to come do the work ‘problem’.
Then the Sudden Shift
Once more and more automation solutions enter a factory to replace a human operator that doesn’t want that job, the job will never again be available to a human. Some of the automation systems I have been involved with have been on the factory floor for 7-10 years. When the machine runs it’s life expectancy it will be replaced with an upgraded model and not another human who wishes to work.
Give it 5 years and then those who want to work again will find there are NO JOBS to be had if you don’t have any skills.
Next 5-10 Years
Are going to be wild. You may have seen the hoopla over ChatGPT. I’ve seen the things that machine vision integrators can do with automation. Next companies will build factories in the middle of BFE, build the infrastructure needed to support the facility. Once that is in place you can automate 95% of it and then you don’t have to build manufacturing near labor because you don’t need the labor.
Welcome My Robot Overlords
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