Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, from Oxford Martin School, published in September 2013 an article on the future of employment, looking at the chances that each one of a set of 702 professional categories have to be made redundant by computerisation in the US context. Their conclusion is that machines could displace almost 47% of the current jobs in that country. So we would have to wait way longer for the return of the jobs lost to technology that some say will result from Schumpeter’s creative destruction (a concept defined in 1942, quite far from our current context, and apparently defined with a different vision than the one under which we usually hear about). Such an outcome would no doubt change entirely our idea of the city, at least the “western city” as we know it.
If I was a luddite I would not be blogging; I am rather optimist, but that is a feeling not always supported by data. However, this text has some interesting elements and a coherent line. To begin with, the article defines a methodology to classify the chances a job has to be computerised. These chances are increased as the tasks implied can be defined and execute by algorythms; it is so easier to computerise the control of a not to complex machine than the work done by a physical therapist, that has to face quite diverse conditions, physical as well as psychological.
However, the complexity and growing efficiency of software implies that complex tasks can be computerised. Beyond the promise of autonomous vehicles, a whole set of functions, as the analysis of legal documents, are being digitized. Some skills that we consider specifically human, as mobility and ability to adapt to unexpected conditions, could be substituted by sets of sensors and motors. Some industries, as construction, can be affected by more prefabs, derivations of 3d printing or a greater relevance of refurbishment by DIY; this last is not in itself a substitution of people by machines, but can sure be helped by easily available information thanks to the internet, and would also ultimately mean less jobs.
Human advantage, according to the authors, would rather be the ability to interact with people: care, negotiation, persuasion, art. In the end, will and sensitivity. Contexts in which robots (that the authors see rising) are still far away. Take translation: I write this blog in three languages, but I do not trust automatic translation, as it has (as of today) no ability to convey double meanings I sometimes play with or other subjective elements of the language. On the other hand, I’m fully confident on Word’s spell checking (it is up to you to say if I’m right there…) as individual words, and even sometimes general grammar, are tasks that are easier to integrate into algorithms. I know that, as a native Spanish-French speaker, my sentences in English are sometimes described by Word as verbose, but sometimes I just happen to want to be verbose… just the same with the passive voice, but as you cannot hear me, I consider this more like an accent, I don’t feel ashamed of.
The article integrates a table with the probability of computerisation for 702 job categories. The most “computerisable” job is that of telemarketers. Insurance underwriters rank 698, watch repairers 697, tellers 683… construction and building inspectors are 351. Architects rank 82, landscape architects 133, urban and regional planners 184, and… computer network architects 208 (while computer systems analysts rank 32). Medical staff are usually in good positions (psychologists 17 or less according to category, doctors in general 15), as well as teachers. However, a lesser chance to get your job digitized doesn’t imply a higher wage…
What would a city loosing 47% of its jobs look like? Some activities we currently understand as the core of urban centrality would suffer, as whole categories of retailers (just think of those selling computers on main street, operating now in a market in which the internet is a tough competition). I’m almost sure we will always have some sort of cafés or eateries, but will we have people serving the treats?
jobs
London, gender and location
According to Census 2011, in London that year there were some 4 million jobs, of which 2,1 millions (53,4%) where of males. In the Managers, Directors and Senior Officials there were 300.000 men and 164.000 women, while professional occupations had 461.000 men and 436.000 women. In administrative and secretarial occupations the ratio was 127.000 men for 286.000 women.
The interesting thing is how these jobs are geographically distributed by gender. As yesterday, red lines are the tube.
Distribution of managers, directors and senior officials, both male and female
Managers, directors and senior officials. Blue areas have more men than woman, pink ones the opposite
Distribution of professionals
Professionals. Blue areas have more men than women, pink ones more women
Secretarial ocupation distribution
Secretarial ocupation. Blue areas have more men in the job, pink ones more women
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Centrality and periphery in Madrid since 2000 (6)
Jobs in 2009: on the first layer, as pink shade, census blocks in which there were 1 to 3 jobs per resident; as an orange shade, census blocks over 3 jobs per resident; the second layer shows the 20 census blocks with the highest employment-residents ratio in the region
Centrality depends on jobs, but not exclusively. In 2009 most of the census blocks in Madrid had less workers in the firms on site than residents registered in the municipality; it is pertinent to remind that the census block is a zone defined for population censuses, and so their area varies, being much larger on rural or industrial areas, with small permanent populations.
The balance between jobs and residents has been an obsession of planning for much of the last decades, as it could help optimize the mobility systems and public facilities, and to avoid monofunctional neighborhoods; in countries deemed to be advanced, where the job history of each citizen is becoming less uniform and stable, this is becoming harder. Despite that, an indicator of centrality of a zone can be the ratio between workers and residents up to a certain point; too many workers and you loose diversity, or you are entirely in a single function space, as industrial areas.
In central Madrid there is a clear north-south corridor with many sections in which there are more than 3 jobs per resident; a large part of the Barrio de Salamanca and the surroundings of Gran Vía were in that condition. The analysis of the census blocks of the whole region show the highest values in industrial areas, the Barajas airport (1), the rail yards of Atocha Station (2) or the University City (3), mainly monofunctional spaces. There is also Azca (4), an attempt from the 1960 to configure a sky-scrapers area, and the surroundings of Cibeles and the Bank of Spain (5) with many public and private institutions; in this cases the census blocks are somehow moderate in size, and they are inserted in a more populated environment, without physical barriers, and accessible by all means of transportation, so they definitely are central.
Inside the M-30 beltway the average value in 2009 was 0,85 jobs per resident.
As pink shade, census blocks in which there were 1 to 3 jobs per resident; as an orange shade, census blocks over 3 jobs per resident
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