Redundant occupations

[Nik]

Have you noticed a dramatic reduction in shoemaker shops or photo studios?
I wonder how much of lower ranking banking personnel were laid off silently once the telebanking and online banking gained ground.
As soon as google translate and similar software improve further thousands or millions of interpreters will need to "diversify".
Driverless cars, already tested on the streets and highways everywhere, can require cab drivers to hide in the trunk lest interfere with the autopilot.
What other occupations may become an "endangered" specie?
What will people do once most things are automated? Will "working for a living" formula remain or will need to change?

[Philip]

Call centre operators
Bus, truck and other delivery drivers
Pilots!
Huge ships are mostly automated in terms of sailing

We can all be police but then again I'm going to be a famous writer...

[J.J.]

Cashiers and fast food workers are the obvious ones. Stores have been rolling out self-serve checkouts over the last 15-20 years. Instead of needing one cashier for every register, now they only need one to watch over a whole bank of registers. Fast food has been rolling out kiosks allowing customers to order their food at the touch of their fingertips. Instead or needing several cashiers to take those orders, FF places might only need one now to gatekeep between the customers and the kitchen.

Retail has a lot of jobs that are on their way out right now. Internet has forced brick and mortar to adopt a similar strategy to their e-competitors. In the last 10-15 years, retailers have been rolling out options that allow customers to place their orders online and pick it up in-store later that day instead of waiting several days for that order to arrive from the online e-tailer. Covid shutdowns accelerated this transformation.

I wouldn't be surprised if retailers move toward eliminating in-store shopping when this is over...pushing customers toward ordering online so they can operate the stores like mini warehouses. You wouldn't need cashiers standing at their registers during slow times while customers trickle through, because the register will now be manned only when the company picker is done picking a customer's order...especially when that picker doubles as his or her own cashier. The stock crew doesn't have to spend as much time straightening up the store because you no longer need the store to be presentable to customers, only organized for the pickers. And you also don't have thousands of customers taking stuff all over the store and leaving things where they don't go.

Restaurants are moving toward a model where customers order from a tablet at the table, or they place the order on their phone before they get there so it's ready when they sit down. Then you have them pay with an app on their phone. And all of this instead of dealing with a waitress. The waitress's job gets boiled down to where all they have to do is move the food from the kitchen to the table, and suddenly a restaurant only needs one waitress instead of two or three or four.

Car dealers are increasingly adopting a "buy online and bring the car to you" model. It cuts out the salesman, so if you own a dealership, you don't need to pay that salesman a commission because they're not selling the car. You eliminate the "salesmen" and hire a cheaper "driver" or whatever you want to call it.

If we reach the point where driverless cars are widely accepted and safe, how much longer will it be before we start automating construction equipment? Will we eventually have backhoes digging ditches and trenches without someone behind the controls? Automated spreaders laying asphalt for our roads. Cranes bringing supplies to the tops of under construction buildings without an operator. Etc.

[Philip]

J.J. wrote: "Cashiers and fast food workers are the obvious ones. Stores have been rolling out self-serve checkouts over the last 15-20 years. Instead of needing one cashier for every register, now they only ne..."

All those things are already happening. The automated cars element removes cab drivers, delivery drivers. We have already seen this in automotive factories where humans maintain the robots building the cars/goods

I have read several tech papers on impact of driverless cars on car ownership i.e. the uber model with no driver just press app, car type specified arrives and takes you where you want to go. No need to own a car at all - or drive it. Cost of ownership zero.

[Barbara]

I think the people who remain might be the creators - dancers, artists, writers, singers, filmmakers.
I also said on another topic about the survival of small book stores that a lot of retail is going to have to create events to drive in traffic - book signings and clubs for book stores, DIY demos for home improvement stores - already a lot of the larger pet stores have services like grooming and partner with local adoption centers. And foods that you want to have fresh - a lot of baked goods and produce - would keep those stores open. I have had some pretty good cakes i bought online but they are nothing to the ones at my local bakeries.

[Scout]

The job of people carting trash cans to the road has been eliminated here. I say they weren't needed in the first place because people have been getting their cans to the street as they always have - on their own or with the help of neighbors or by calling city govt and having them put out. The funny thing is that people have been requesting refunds since the service is no longer available, and the city says that the service was free of charge. Right. As if employing all those people and running all those trucks didn't figure into their budget, and we didn't absorb that cost. The joke's on us, as usual.

[Lizzie]

Admittedly, this doesn't answer the question, but the post brought to mind these 2 things.

The seamstress was replaced by the sewing machine. But, it created a whole new industry of ready made clothing in department stores. Aside from that, someone had to repair the things. Our first use of computers in my office, we spent as much on service as we did the machines over their lifetime. For a job lost, there are others gained.

In our current environment delivery services have become huge. Before the virus, they were pretty much ignored by the general population despite them being customary a hundred years ago.

[Philip]

Delivery services will be ok until automated vehicles are in full flight - suspect long distance truckers will lose out before local van deliveries

[Lizzie]

Philip wrote: "Delivery services will be ok until automated vehicles are in full flight - suspect long distance truckers will lose out before local van deliveries"

I agree and I think local deliveries has become more prominent as a result of Covid. Yet, it was common place at one point and part of the retail industry.

With automated vehicles, does that not create more jobs in a different occupation? Repair, monitoring, updating systems?

[Marie]

I was actually shocked to see an actual shoemaker shop a couple of weeks ago at an outdoor mall. I really didn't think those shops were still around. With shoes being affordable and found at just about at any retail store, I don't think people actually go to those kind of shops any longer.

As far as photo studios I think people will always need professional photographers for the things in their lives.

Though you also have photo machines in quite a few retail stores like Walmart, Target, etc. so that you can do your own photos from your phone - there was a time where you had to rely on someone in the photo center to develop your film or to send it off to the photo lab. Now you can just do it yourself within a few minutes.