Young people 'feel they have nothing to live for'

[Zaune]

BBC News

As many as three quarters of a million young people in the UK may feel that they have nothing to live for, a study for the Prince's Trust charity claims.

The trust says almost a third of long-term unemployed young people have contemplated taking their own lives.

Urgent action must be taken to prevent the young jobless becoming the young hopeless, it says.

The government commented that it was doing "everything possible" to help young people find work.

Last month, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed the UK unemployment rate had fallen to its lowest level since 2009, with the number of people out of work falling by 99,000 to 2.39 million in the three months to October.

Chris Newell's story

Excluded from school at the age of 14, Chris had no qualifications. He was applying for 10 jobs a week but did not even get responses. He turned to drink and drugs and at the age of 20, tried to take his own life.

"I just got into a cycle of staying in bed because I had nothing to wake up for. Then I began noticing my mental health getting worse and worse. I became depressed and anxious. When I went out in public it got to the point where I felt paranoid and edgy around people.

"And I think that's all because I didn't have a routine and structure, because I think that's important in a lot of people's lives, to have something to wake up for in the morning, to have something to live for. I just felt horrible about myself.

"I were suicidal at times coz I felt worthless and it just went on and on and I weren't getting anywhere. I took a load of tablets and thankfully I'm still here. But at the time I didn't think that, 'cause I were at an all time low, I were at rock bottom for a long time. And being out of work, you know, contributed to that."

But after attending a course run by the Prince's Trust, Chris built up his self-confidence and gained new skills and qualifications. Now 23, he works in a residential home for young people and is studying towards a youth worker level 2 qualification.
'Devastating'

The Prince's Trust Macquarie Youth Index was based on interviews with 2,161 16 to 25-year-olds. Of these, 281 were classified as Neet (not in employment, education or training) and 166 of these Neets had been unemployed for over six months.

The report found 9% of all respondents agreed with the statement: "I have nothing to live for" and said if 9% of all youngsters felt the same, it would equate to some 751,230 young people feeling they had nothing to live for.

Among those respondents classified as Neet, the percentage of those agreeing with the statement rose to 21%.

The research found that long-term unemployed young people were more than twice as likely as their peers to have been prescribed anti-depressants.

One in three (32%) had contemplated suicide, while one in four (24%) had self-harmed.

The report found 40% of jobless young people had faced symptoms of mental illness, including suicidal thoughts, feelings of self-loathing and panic attacks, as a direct result of unemployment.

Three quarters of long-term unemployed young people (72%) did not have someone to confide in, the study found.

Martina Milburn, chief executive of the Prince's Trust, said: "Unemployment is proven to cause devastating, long-lasting mental health problems among young people.

"Thousands wake up every day believing that life isn't worth living, after struggling for years in the dole queue.

"More than 440,000 young people are facing long-term unemployment, and it is these young people that urgently need our help.

"If we fail to act, there is a real danger that these young people will become hopeless, as well as jobless."

Wage incentives

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pension said the government was "doing everything possible" to help young people into work and that there were currently 106,000 fewer young people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance than there were in 2010.

"Through the youth contract, we've hugely increased the number of work experience placements and apprenticeships to give young people the support they need to find a job," the spokesman said.

"By offering employers wage incentives worth up to £2,275 we are helping businesses to take them on.

"The work programme has also helped more than 74,000 young people escape long-term unemployment and find lasting work."

The Prince's Trust was set up by Prince Charles in 1976 to help disadvantaged young people.

It supports 13 to 30 year-olds who are unemployed and those struggling at school and at risk of exclusion.

Posted without comment.

[Flagg]

I'll comment: It has now been irrevocably proven that austerity not only doesn't work, it makes things worse.

[Broomstick]

Well, yes, being bludgeoned for years with "get a job!" when there simply aren't enough jobs to go around is going to result in major suck. People need this explained?

In my darker moments I think there are actually some people that would prefer the long-term unemployed kill themselves to reduce the "surplus" of people.

People need to feel needed.

[KlavoHunter]

Agree completely with the article. Joblessness leads to feeling worthless. Though at least in Britain the safety net is a more well-patched thing than in America...

[PREDATOR490]

Been there, done that and got the Occupational Therapist's report.

If you want irony, while I was on one of those training placements, I was placed in one of the organizations they outsource to find people work and ended up watching 19 staff get shrunk to 5 because they all lost their jobs.

What makes it more sad is that 'young people' is classed as 18 - 24.
After that bracket you might as well be dead because your dead weight to the DWP and their support simply results in "prove you looked for a job or else"

[Zaune]

What makes it more sad is that 'young people' is classed as 18 - 24.
After that bracket you might as well be dead because your dead weight to the DWP and their support simply results in "prove you looked for a job or else"

In practice, the frontline staff don't really check that anymore. They couldn't if they wanted to; even if they could spend half an hour on the phone trying to get hold of the right person in the prospective employer's HR department, do you honestly think anyone actually keeps records of the candidates they've rejected?

That almost makes it worst, to be honest. They know it's all a sad farce just as well their customers do, they're just not allowed to come out and say it or they'll get sacked.

[Minischoles]

What makes it more sad is that 'young people' is classed as 18 - 24.
After that bracket you might as well be dead because your dead weight to the DWP and their support simply results in "prove you looked for a job or else"

In practice, the frontline staff don't really check that anymore. They couldn't if they wanted to; even if they could spend half an hour on the phone trying to get hold of the right person in the prospective employer's HR department, do you honestly think anyone actually keeps records of the candidates they've rejected?

That almost makes it worst, to be honest. They know it's all a sad farce just as well their customers do, they're just not allowed to come out and say it or they'll get sacked.

I honestly had someone in the local jobcentre try an claim that local companies people applied for would inform the job centre of all of those applicants they had and those they rejected. I just laughed, 90% of the applications sent for any job aren't even seen by a person. Don't even get me started on the system they've brought in to try and track how many jobs you apply for - Universal Job Match, where 75% of the jobs can't be applied for through the site.

Hell I know when I was on job seekers after two months of not getting any replies to the applications I sent I didn't even bother applying anymore. I just couldn't see the point anymore.

I completely agree about the feeling of helplessness, after months of not even getting a reply to say it was rejected let alone get an interview or a job, I was so depressed I barely left my room some days. I was damn lucky to land a job.

[Murazor]

Same thing over here, but with even more people affected.

Same song everywhere, these days.

[JME2]

Agree with this article 100%.

I've struggled with this during my own under-employment and hunt for permanent work opportunities.

This scenario is also currently destroying one of my Uncles, who's been unemployed for 8 months now.

[Rycon67]

In my darker moments I think there are actually some people that would prefer the long-term unemployed kill themselves to reduce the "surplus" of people.

I loath people with that mindset. Just because you've got a job, are doing okay, and maybe even have some money saved up for a rainy day down the road now doesn't mean that you can't be one of those long term unemployed easily enough, even if through fault or failing of your own.

[Ahriman238]

Weirdly enough of the movies to get you thinking, I had a serious moment of connection for 'the Internship.' When the two middle-aged guys see their college-student team-mates have both accepted and internalized the idea that you have to be the best, the smarted, and that's still no guarantee that you'll have a job or a future. And they are shocked that anyone so young could be so jaded.

I think if there's one thing that defines the generation that are in their twenties now, counting myself, it's this recession/depression, the lack of jobs and the profound uncertainty about the future.

[JME2]

I think if there's one thing that defines the generation that are in their twenties now, counting myself, it's this recession/depression, the lack of jobs and the profound uncertainty about the future.

It's certainly become our generation's trial by fire.

It's certainly changed my personal views on the nature workforce and economy compared to 5 years ago.

[Simon_Jester]

It's going to be a very interesting world when most of the people who began their careers in the '60s and '70s* have aged out of dominating the political picture, and the nation is dominated by people who got their start in the '80s and '90s**, backed by a dominant voting block that started out in the '00s and '10s.***

*Back when you could almost certainly get a job by being more of a go-getter than the other guy, and anyone with the brains and determination to sweat it out at college had at least a reasonable guarantee of being all right.
**When this was still pretty much true, but people in this age group are young enough that the recession has affected their midlife very sharply.
***When this was decidedly NOT true, and the system's sheer corrosiveness and hostility to attempts to bootstrap oneself had gotten out of control.

It's easy to overestimate, on this forum, the percentage of twentysomethings who look at today's economy and mutter darkly that there ought to be a law against it. Even so, I bet that percentage is a lot higher than it was among the twentysomethings of 1993 or 1973.

[AniThyng]

It's going to be a very interesting world when most of the people who began their careers in the '60s and '70s* have aged out of dominating the political picture, and the nation is dominated by people who got their start in the '80s and '90s**, backed by a dominant voting block that started out in the '00s and '10s.***

*Back when you could almost certainly get a job by being more of a go-getter than the other guy, and anyone with the brains and determination to sweat it out at college had at least a reasonable guarantee of being all right.
**When this was still pretty much true, but people in this age group are young enough that the recession has affected their midlife very sharply.
***When this was decidedly NOT true, and the system's sheer corrosiveness and hostility to attempts to bootstrap oneself had gotten out of control.

It's easy to overestimate, on this forum, the percentage of twentysomethings who look at today's economy and mutter darkly that there ought to be a law against it. Even so, I bet that percentage is a lot higher than it was among the twentysomethings of 1993 or 1973.

I wonder what the actual income profile of young people is - how is it possible so much more are in despair/poverty, yet sales of frivolious devices like XBOX;s and PS4;s are at unheard of levels for decades prior?

[JME2]

I wonder what the actual income profile of young people is - how is it possible so much more are in despair/poverty, yet sales of frivolious devices like XBOX;s and PS4;s are at unheard of levels for decades prior?

Escapism.

I think so many are so depressed and feel utterly fucked that they're doing anything they can to escape the despair and pain -- even if means spending money on frivolous things.

I'm not immune to this. I've indulged in my own coping mechanisms (comics, films, etc.) during this period.

[General Zod]

It's going to be a very interesting world when most of the people who began their careers in the '60s and '70s* have aged out of dominating the political picture, and the nation is dominated by people who got their start in the '80s and '90s**, backed by a dominant voting block that started out in the '00s and '10s.***

*Back when you could almost certainly get a job by being more of a go-getter than the other guy, and anyone with the brains and determination to sweat it out at college had at least a reasonable guarantee of being all right.
**When this was still pretty much true, but people in this age group are young enough that the recession has affected their midlife very sharply.
***When this was decidedly NOT true, and the system's sheer corrosiveness and hostility to attempts to bootstrap oneself had gotten out of control.

It's easy to overestimate, on this forum, the percentage of twentysomethings who look at today's economy and mutter darkly that there ought to be a law against it. Even so, I bet that percentage is a lot higher than it was among the twentysomethings of 1993 or 1973.

I wonder what the actual income profile of young people is - how is it possible so much more are in despair/poverty, yet sales of frivolious devices like XBOX;s and PS4;s are at unheard of levels for decades prior?

Isn't that kind of a silly way to measure things? Just because you might own one or two luxury items doesn't mean you aren't otherwise living in poverty. It's like the politician who said that as long as people have refrigerators they aren't really poor.

[Jub]

I wonder what the actual income profile of young people is - how is it possible so much more are in despair/poverty, yet sales of frivolious devices like XBOX;s and PS4;s are at unheard of levels for decades prior?

In the grand scheme of things a gaming device, even a thousand dollar gaming PC, is cheap. Cheaper than a car and going out for entertainment at least. If you budget for treating yourself is $100 a month you could do dinner and a movie with a date once, or you could get a new game or two and have enough to spare for cheap junk food.

Most people will opt to get the thing that keeps them entertained longer so they splurge on a new console as opposed to saving for the future or investing in a car.

Myself I'm 25, I have some college education, but no diploma or degree to say I've accomplished something. My work skills boil down my choice of jobs for me; food service, cashier, sales floor personnel, telemarketer. If I could save up enough I might go back to college again, but by the time I graduate I'll be in my 30's. I don't know how much worse the economy might be in 5 years. It certainly doesn't seem to be getting better at this stage.

This makes me wonder why people of older generations think I've had it so easy? Sure we have a few nice bits of technology to keep us sane, but there isn't any opportunity for me to really get ahead. So many positions are still filled by boomers and college is almost too expensive for many people to bother with, yet it still seems to be expected if you want to be anything other than entry level.

I'm kind of rambling, but the reality is I don't see myself getting anywhere by working harder so I'd rather just be lazy and float from job to job. They all pay the same bad wage anyway and most companies don't even bother to promote from within. I could go to college, but by the time I finish will I be able to earn enough to pay off that debt and buy a house to retire into?

[Stormin]

I'm stuck on the bottom end of the income tree as well and my gaming is about the only affordable entertainment around. Like, I will never have the money for a house, new car, vacations, going out for meals regularly etc so why should I skimp on what I can afford when it's likely all I'll have? A decent smartphone saves me money on all of the devices and services it replaces too, so that's why I have mine too.

Fancy years old phone + $1k computer every 4-5 years. Not much when spread over the time they are used for and they keep me sane.

As for the suicides, young people should not be doing that sort of thing. They still have a chance, but I wouldn't be surprised the rate will go up as they hit their 30s and up and still have to scrape by with multiple min wage jobs with the stresses and uncertainties associated with that taking a massive hit on their health.

[DarkArk]

One thing to note: professional studies of suicide show that one of the most common factors is long-term unemployment during youth, and that doesn't necessarily mean right at the time. It affects the chance for the rest of a person's life, so far as we can tell. My generation (I'm 23) is likely going to be dealing with a higher suicide rate as a fact of life.

As for myself, I might have a college degree with negligible debt but damn has that not been doing much for me. Can't go to teach abroad because that costs money, even though I have the skills for it (education degrees made so much more sense in 2007). I've now been living off of odd jobs and paying rent in kind for 18 months now, and boy does it feel horrible. So this article reflects my own experiences quite well.

It makes me wonder why some entrepreneurial billionaire hasn't come in and sucked up all this talent that is being allowed to literally whither on the vine. You'd think someone would, because we're facing the stupidity of making a consumer economy and then not giving our people enough money to spend. Can't expect anything like the alphabet soup programs out of this government. I'm surprised there hasn't been more social unrest because of this honestly.

It makes me wish the Depression-era folks were still around, because they were the last people to have to deal with grinding unemployment levels like this. It gets frustrating dealing with parents who didn't make a single major misstep in their life telling you you just have to look harder.

[K. A. Pital]

Gaming is a poor man's cop-out. It is very much true. When I was dirt-poor, I used to play videogames and go to the movies way more than I do now. No paradox here.

[Simon_Jester]

This makes me wonder why people of older generations think I've had it so easy? Sure we have a few nice bits of technology to keep us sane, but there isn't any opportunity for me to really get ahead. So many positions are still filled by boomers and college is almost too expensive for many people to bother with, yet it still seems to be expected if you want to be anything other than entry level.

I think that impression of their was fixed when looking at the current generation in its teens before the recession. Near-universal college attendance, protective helicopter parents, ubiquitous electronics, relatively low pressure to get a job before college... being part of the demographic born in the mid- to late 1980s or early 1990s was a pretty good deal up until the recession hit in 2007-8.

Which is, I think, part of the problem that's causing the overall psychological malaise. In the Great Depression, the average American of any age was accustomed to the idea that they were going to have to work long, hard hours, probably at some sort of rather punishing manual labor, because that's where most jobs were even in good economic times. If work was hard to find, well, pretty much any ablebodied unskilled man had at least a chance, the same chance as any other ablebodied unskilled man. And having been out of work for a period of months or even years wasn't a death sentence; there was no such thing as having to submit a resume for a job cooking hamburgers. So 'one,' the generic worker affected by this environment, squared one's shoulders and kept trying, if one had any gumption at all.

[This is not to say there weren't lots of depressed people and suicides, but the differing nature of the economy seems to have made for less psychological suffering at the same time it made for more physical suffering]

'Kids today,' the median twentysomething who didn't pursue an unusual specialist education in college and thus has nothing all that special to offer employers, have this huge sense of dissonance hitting them, this gap between what they'd been taught to expect (a white-collar career for the average American) and what they can realistically expect (a 'career' that's more of a careen, staggering back and forth between temporary and short-term jobs in a large scale version of musical chairs).

It's not just that work is hard to find, it's that the very model of what it means to 'work for a living' has changed since the early 20th century... and now that model is breaking down rapidly, at least for people at or near the entry-level.

As for the suicides, young people should not be doing that sort of thing. They still have a chance, but I wouldn't be surprised the rate will go up as they hit their 30s and up and still have to scrape by with multiple min wage jobs with the stresses and uncertainties associated with that taking a massive hit on their health.

On the other hand, the job market may look more open in 10 years than it does now. Most of the positions at the top right now are occupied by people born in the 1960s or earlier, and for that matter, so are a significant number of positions at the bottom. 10 years from now, the people born prior to 1960 will overwhelmingly be retired. Instead of looking like this (blue chart, ignore the bars)

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/as ... ution1.jpg

the age distribution will look more like this (red chart; grey is 2050)

http://capricorn.bc.edu/agingandwork/da ... lation.gif

On the one hand, we're facing a semipermanent transition in which a lot of full time jobs that were there in the 1990s and early '00s have been replaced by outsourcing, automation, or employers hiring two part-time workers to replace one full-time. On the other hand, full-time jobs haven't been abolished and aren't likely to, and a heck of a lot of people are going to be retiring from the labor force in the next decade or two.

[Jub]

As for the suicides, young people should not be doing that sort of thing. They still have a chance, but I wouldn't be surprised the rate will go up as they hit their 30s and up and still have to scrape by with multiple min wage jobs with the stresses and uncertainties associated with that taking a massive hit on their health.

On the other hand, the job market may look more open in 10 years than it does now. Most of the positions at the top right now are occupied by people born in the 1960s or earlier, and for that matter, so are a significant number of positions at the bottom. 10 years from now, the people born prior to 1960 will overwhelmingly be retired. Instead of looking like this (blue chart, ignore the bars)

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/as ... ution1.jpg

the age distribution will look more like this (red chart; grey is 2050)

http://capricorn.bc.edu/agingandwork/da ... lation.gif

On the one hand, we're facing a semipermanent transition in which a lot of full time jobs that were there in the 1990s and early '00s have been replaced by outsourcing, automation, or employers hiring two part-time workers to replace one full-time. On the other hand, full-time jobs haven't been abolished and aren't likely to, and a heck of a lot of people are going to be retiring from the labor force in the next decade or two.

Even when the boomers start to go, we'll still be looking at companies wanting to snap up younger workers so those of us in our 20's now will be passed by for people with fresher more modern skills. Plus one look at our resumes will show us shuffling from crap job to job, being fired/laid off from some, quitting others, possibly long periods without anything that can go on a resume. We'll most likely be something of a lost generation who had more to give, but were never called upon to give it.

[Simon_Jester]

Jub, I don't think it's that simple. For one, there aren't going to be as many new workers born in 2005 and entering the workforce in 2025 as there will be people born in 1960 and retiring in 2025. So the net supply of labor is shrinking and someone has to get hired to fill the gaps.

For another, the biggest single reason that companies play this asinine "we won't hire you if there are holes in your resume" game today is that it is VERY much a buyer's market for labor. Supply exceeds demand, so we have structural unemployment to the tune of... U6 is 13% right now, subtract a few percent who really ARE not interested in a job, period end of sentence, call it 10% unemployment.

If everyone were equally likely to lose their job and to find a job, that would mean everyone was employed roughly 90% of the time. But there's something else going on. Since a lot of people are in jobs that are highly unlikely to be lost to unemployment, though, we might imagine that, say, 50% of those slots are filled and will stay filled. That's for people who haven't actually changed job since the recession, or who are specialists in high demand whether there's a recession or not. Meanwhile, the other 50% are competing for job slots equal to 40% of the population. Now they're only spending 80% of their time employed- say, two five-week job searches per year, or a three-month period of unemployment every 15 months, or a two-year dry spell of long term unemployment every decade.

Sound familiar?

But the reason this happens is that there are simply a lot more potential laborers than jobs, so SOMEONE has to lose the game of musical chairs each time. What's going to happen as the boomers finally get on with this whole aging-retirement-death thing, which is only just beginning to happen now, is that the per capita supply of labor will shrink, while the per capita demand for laborers will if anything grow. Retired people have a lot of needs that someone can get paid to supply, after all.

So that structural gap between labor supply and labor demand closes up. Some of the permanent positions now held by boomers open up and can be filled by people now occupying the short-term labor market; gaps in the short-term labor market can be filled by people coming back to work for the first time in years.

[Which used to actually happen, even if it doesn't now- it was fairly normal in the '90s and early '00s for, say, a housewife who'd not had a job in years to just decide to get one, and succeed, even if the job was usually pretty crappy. Happened to my mom, and it's the fact about 2000-era economic life that even allowed Barbara Ehrenreich to write the infamous Nickel and Dimed.]
__________________

P.S.

[Also, do note that a lot of people in the 20-30 age bracket today DO have serious jobs and careers; there's a huge amount of luck and special-circumstances involved, but it's not a universal experience any more than being a Vietnam vet was a universal experience for the baby boomers]

[Mr Bean]

It may be of interest that the Economist recently published this story
The Economist

The effect of today’s technology on tomorrow’s jobs will be immense—and no country is ready for it
Jan 18th 2014 | From the print edition

INNOVATION, the elixir of progress, has always cost people their jobs. In the Industrial Revolution artisan weavers were swept aside by the mechanical loom. Over the past 30 years the digital revolution has displaced many of the mid-skill jobs that underpinned 20th-century middle-class life. Typists, ticket agents, bank tellers and many production-line jobs have been dispensed with, just as the weavers were.

For those, including this newspaper, who believe that technological progress has made the world a better place, such churn is a natural part of rising prosperity. Although innovation kills some jobs, it creates new and better ones, as a more productive society becomes richer and its wealthier inhabitants demand more goods and services. A hundred years ago one in three American workers was employed on a farm. Today less than 2% of them produce far more food. The millions freed from the land were not consigned to joblessness, but found better-paid work as the economy grew more sophisticated. Today the pool of secretaries has shrunk, but there are ever more computer programmers and web designers.
In this section


Optimism remains the right starting-point, but for workers the dislocating effects of technology may make themselves evident faster than its benefits (see article). Even if new jobs and wonderful products emerge, in the short term income gaps will widen, causing huge social dislocation and perhaps even changing politics. Technology’s impact will feel like a tornado, hitting the rich world first, but eventually sweeping through poorer countries too. No government is prepared for it.

Why be worried? It is partly just a matter of history repeating itself. In the early part of the Industrial Revolution the rewards of increasing productivity went disproportionately to capital; later on, labour reaped most of the benefits. The pattern today is similar. The prosperity unleashed by the digital revolution has gone overwhelmingly to the owners of capital and the highest-skilled workers. Over the past three decades, labour’s share of output has shrunk globally from 64% to 59%. Meanwhile, the share of income going to the top 1% in America has risen from around 9% in the 1970s to 22% today. Unemployment is at alarming levels in much of the rich world, and not just for cyclical reasons. In 2000, 65% of working-age Americans were in work; since then the proportion has fallen, during good years as well as bad, to the current level of 59%.

Worse, it seems likely that this wave of technological disruption to the job market has only just started. From driverless cars to clever household gadgets (see article), innovations that already exist could destroy swathes of jobs that have hitherto been untouched. The public sector is one obvious target: it has proved singularly resistant to tech-driven reinvention. But the step change in what computers can do will have a powerful effect on middle-class jobs in the private sector too.

Until now the jobs most vulnerable to machines were those that involved routine, repetitive tasks. But thanks to the exponential rise in processing power and the ubiquity of digitised information (“big data”), computers are increasingly able to perform complicated tasks more cheaply and effectively than people. Clever industrial robots can quickly “learn” a set of human actions. Services may be even more vulnerable. Computers can already detect intruders in a closed-circuit camera picture more reliably than a human can. By comparing reams of financial or biometric data, they can often diagnose fraud or illness more accurately than any number of accountants or doctors. One recent study by academics at Oxford University suggests that 47% of today’s jobs could be automated in the next two decades.

At the same time, the digital revolution is transforming the process of innovation itself, as our special report explains. Thanks to off-the-shelf code from the internet and platforms that host services (such as Amazon’s cloud computing), provide distribution (Apple’s app store) and offer marketing (Facebook), the number of digital startups has exploded. Just as computer-games designers invented a product that humanity never knew it needed but now cannot do without, so these firms will no doubt dream up new goods and services to employ millions. But for now they are singularly light on workers. When Instagram, a popular photo-sharing site, was sold to Facebook for about $1 billion in 2012, it had 30m customers and employed 13 people. Kodak, which filed for bankruptcy a few months earlier, employed 145,000 people in its heyday.

The problem is one of timing as much as anything. Google now employs 46,000 people. But it takes years for new industries to grow, whereas the disruption a startup causes to incumbents is felt sooner. Airbnb may turn homeowners with spare rooms into entrepreneurs, but it poses a direct threat to the lower end of the hotel business—a massive employer.

No time to be timid

If this analysis is halfway correct, the social effects will be huge. Many of the jobs most at risk are lower down the ladder (logistics, haulage), whereas the skills that are least vulnerable to automation (creativity, managerial expertise) tend to be higher up, so median wages are likely to remain stagnant for some time and income gaps are likely to widen.

Anger about rising inequality is bound to grow, but politicians will find it hard to address the problem. Shunning progress would be as futile now as the Luddites’ protests against mechanised looms were in the 1810s, because any country that tried to stop would be left behind by competitors eager to embrace new technology. The freedom to raise taxes on the rich to punitive levels will be similarly constrained by the mobility of capital and highly skilled labour.

The main way in which governments can help their people through this dislocation is through education systems. One of the reasons for the improvement in workers’ fortunes in the latter part of the Industrial Revolution was because schools were built to educate them—a dramatic change at the time. Now those schools themselves need to be changed, to foster the creativity that humans will need to set them apart from computers. There should be less rote-learning and more critical thinking. Technology itself will help, whether through MOOCs (massive open online courses) or even video games that simulate the skills needed for work.

The definition of “a state education” may also change. Far more money should be spent on pre-schooling, since the cognitive abilities and social skills that children learn in their first few years define much of their future potential. And adults will need continuous education. State education may well involve a year of study to be taken later in life, perhaps in stages.

Yet however well people are taught, their abilities will remain unequal, and in a world which is increasingly polarised economically, many will find their job prospects dimmed and wages squeezed. The best way of helping them is not, as many on the left seem to think, to push up minimum wages. Jacking up the floor too far would accelerate the shift from human workers to computers. Better to top up low wages with public money so that anyone who works has a reasonable income, through a bold expansion of the tax credits that countries such as America and Britain use.

Innovation has brought great benefits to humanity. Nobody in their right mind would want to return to the world of handloom weavers. But the benefits of technological progress are unevenly distributed, especially in the early stages of each new wave, and it is up to governments to spread them. In the 19th century it took the threat of revolution to bring about progressive reforms. Today’s governments would do well to start making the changes needed before their people get angry.

TL:DR, there's a large number of jobs (47%) that exist today that can be automated in another decade. And there will be far fewer jobs created to replace what's been lost.

For myself I can already see it happening. At my local Wall Mart half the lanes are self serve and one worker watches six lanes. Give it ten years of dev time and I could see you having twenty lines open and two humans watching the batch. I never need to talk to my local bank people since now 100% of bank activities can be done online or at an atm. In fact when the ATM is down I'm annoyed when I have to talk to a human because the ATM deposits my checks much faster than they do.

My own company recently replaced held off on hiring someone because we could automate enough of one of our employee's jobs we could switch him to the place where we were planning to hire someone.

[JME2]

'Kids today,' the median twentysomething who didn't pursue an unusual specialist education in college and thus has nothing all that special to offer employers, have this huge sense of dissonance hitting them, this gap between what they'd been taught to expect (a white-collar career for the average American) and what they can realistically expect (a 'career' that's more of a careen, staggering back and forth between temporary and short-term jobs in a large scale version of musical chairs).

It's not just that work is hard to find, it's that the very model of what it means to 'work for a living' has changed since the early 20th century... and now that model is breaking down rapidly, at least for people at or near the entry-level.

I think one long-term effect on this generation is that they're going to be more loyal to themselves instead of employers.

They've got to watch as their parents gave years of their lives to a company -- only to be laid off or discarded without a second though.

And if they've been exploited or taken advantage of during by employers during their own struggles, it's only going to reinforce a distrust of their future employers.