Automated Cars, Trucks Threaten Professional Driver Jobs

By PAUL WISEMAN and JOE MANDAK | November 9, 2016

  • November 10, 2016 at 9:01 am
    chris says:
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    While this will be one of many “disruptive” technologies, it is by far not the only one that will threaten cab and even pilot jobs, which are likely to be replaced by technology at some point as well.

    We are also coming into the VR/AR/MR technology as well, that is likely to change the entire dynamics of many workplaces. It will be much less expensive to have a “face-to-face” meeting virtually, where each person in the meeting can even augment their appearance so that they appear professional even when their at home and wearing their sweats (or less). They won’t need to be co-located in order to work as if they are, meaning that they won’t even need to drive to work or fly to business meetings.

    The good news is that this will create more jobs to build the infrastructure needed to support all the data that is going to moving back and forth across the continent and the world. Many of these will be highly technical jobs, but there will be many that are more construction related. The pay for these jobs will likely go up because the demand is going to skyrocket. There will be putting up towers and pulling/maintaining fiber optic cables and more. There will be a huge demand for technical positions that can support increased security needs and more, as well.

    Also, if America does close off its “free trade” arrangements, it may need to be able to do things more cheaply in order to compete with world markets. In order to do that, we will either need to reduce the wages of our workforce (increasing jobs but decreasing pay, eww), or we will need to augment our workforce with automation so that we can do more with less.

    So, while this technology is definitely going to make things tougher for some folks, for most, it will simply shift where they are doing their work.



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