Will electronics lead to massive unemployment?

Kersi Meher-Homji asks

I appreciate electronics and their advantages. But I am thinking of job situations. Earlier this week 115 journalists were made redundant by Fairfax. It is an ongoing problem across many professions.

Let’s peep to year 2050. Only job securities will be for architects, surgeons, biological scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers and teachers.

However, Post Offices will shut down and postmen will become things of distant past. Only couriers will be needed to carry parcels to and fro.

Most of the banks will go the same way as all transactions including home loans will be done online. Journalists will be needed only for e-papers or websites. But what will happen to printers, distributors?

Newsagencies and bookshops will shut down. Supermarket check-out persons will be replaced by robots. Opal cards have already resulted in job losses.

Currently Australia’s population is 24.8 million and unemployment rate 5.9%. I shudder to think what the unemployment rate will be in 2050? Perhaps it will soar five times higher.

Can you imagine that about 30% will be unemployed after three decades? And apparently no one is worried about it for our grand children.

What is true of Australia is also true of other countries, especially India.

Scientists make us aware of climate change and global warming. Yes, they are important issues. But unemployment caused by overuse of electronics should be on our agenda. Now!

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