Automation risking jobs

[Gilchy]

https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-story-264574-6-.htm#264574

Thousands of jobs at stake
Jeremy Hainsworth/Glacier Media

A business-as-usual approach allowing creeping automation in B.C.’s ports without government intervention will lead to economic chaos, heavy job losses and significant loss of tax revenue, an International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada report warns.

Union president Rob Ashton says automation at B.C. ports could eliminate 9,200 jobs and cost the provincial economy $600 million annually.

“If you start automating more terminals, the damage could be catastrophic,” Ashton said.

The report was done by Prism Economics and Analysis.

“Disruption on this scale will be felt by the provincial economy and will have an acute effect in some local communities, particularly those that rely on this industry for good jobs and the economic benefits they bring locally,” Prism partner John O’Grady said.

The report broke down the impacts by communities on the B.C. coast, saying automation could eliminate significant numbers of middle class and high-income jobs in marine-dependant communities. It focused only on the container sector of port operations.

The report said longshore employment accounts for 26% of all jobs paying more than $70,000 a year in Prince Rupert. In Delta, the number is 11% and 2% in Vancouver.

Further, it said, such jobs account for 66% of all jobs paying more than $100,000 a year in Prince Rupert. In Delta, the number is 23% and 3% in Vancouver.

“It is clear that the loss of jobs stemming from automation will have a significant impact on lost wages for individual workers but also the communities in which they live,” the report said.
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Stuff like this is where I would like to see some form of UBI. For all the "bring jobs back to Canada" rhetoric, a lot of the processing/manual labour/manufacturing jobs simply do not exist anymore. For all the complaining about the "service economy", building stuff and moving stuff often doesn't require people anymore.

Unfettered capitalism is great for building profits, but as technology continues to improve, there will increasingly be people left behind, and we as a society have to decide the best way to deal with this.

[1791]

People said the same nonsense about the invention of the threshing machine. The invention of the automobile. The train. Etc.