Pub. 14 2017 Issue 1

O V E R A C E N T U R Y : B U I L D I N G B E T T E R B A N K S - H E L P I N G N E W M E X I C O R E A L I Z E D R E A M S 14 Job Displacement in America By Mark Anderson, Legal and Legislative Assistant, New Mexico Bankers Association A major concern of American citizens continues to be employment, specifically the acquisition of jobs that provide wages that allowpeople to live comfortably. However, employment is increasingly being complicated by the concept of job displacement, which can be defined as a permanent job loss from a position due to several factors, namely the position no longer exists, due to an economic downturn or company restructuring, or the position being replaced by automation. An issue that is becoming increasingly relevant is job dis- placement due to automation, the use of automatic equipment to perform a given task. Many human beings tend to consider themselves capable of doing anything that a machine can do because of our ability to think critically and react to certain situations and problems, but what if employers don’t feel the same way? Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, has been one of the primary voices for how automation will affect the future of the economy. Musk predicts that 12-15 percent of the current workforce will be displaced in the next two decades due to automation. Musk argues that, eventually, federally funded universal basic income will likely be necessary, which is a stan- dard amount of money citizens will receive each month to cover basic expenses like food, rent, and clothing. Musk states that he doesn’t want people to be displaced from their jobs by robots, but says that the inevitability of it is growing closer and closer. The next step to dealing with this conundrum is figuring out what humans can do that robots cannot. Humans have the ca- pacity for critical thinking, creativity, and adapting to problems quickly. These are qualities that a robot simply cannot duplicate. However, jobs inmanufacturing, numbers-crunching, andmanual labor could be drastically affected by an increase in automation. Employers operate on the basis of their bottom line and robots offer the negation of human error as well as the ability to cut costs. Theremust be an increased emphasis onpeople developing critical thinking skills, creativity, and the ability to innovate. These are qualities that cannot be duplicated without a brain. Musk’s ma- jor concern with an increase in automation is not necessarily an economic one. He worries about what could happen to the sense of purpose in people who are displaced from the workforce. “If there’s no need for your labor, what’s your meaning?” said Musk. “Do you feel useless? That’s amuch harder problem to deal with.”