Manufacturing Today

Image credit.

David Deming has this challenging conclusion to offer:

Automation is a long-run problem that demands a long-run solution. Convincing manufacturing companies to keep — or bring back — jobs, one company at a time, is not going to restore the millions of jobs that have been lost to technological change. We must reorient educational institutions and job training around “human” skills that are difficult to automate. These skills include creativity, complex problem-solving, and the ability to work with others in fluid, team-based settings. 

Make sure to read the entire short but substantial post: Will Manufacturing Jobs Come Back?

I also like these propositions by Mike Norma—which I find challenging because I am not sure whether these are just nice words or insights of great depth:

But the structural problems that global society and the global economy face owing to technological innovation will require creative solutions that can only be addressed by out of the box thinking. The whole concept of "work" and "jobs" needs to be revisited as the world embarks on the Information Age, the Knowledge Society and the Third and Fourth Industrial Revolution that are happening simultaneously owing to technological innovation.

What Deming doesn't consider is distributing the increased opportunity for leisure owing to technological innovation and the reduced need for labor. This could be accomplished by longer time spent in education and earlier retirement by providing public funding as a social dividend. Leisure has long been the basis for culture. Increased distributed leisure can be expected to generate unprecedented cultural benefits.

The economy, including technology, is the material life-support system of a society. Culture is the spiritual foundation of a society. Leisure waters the root of culture by nourishing the human spirit.

The source.