full transcript
From the Ted Talk by David Autor: Will automation take away all our jobs?
Unscramble the Blue Letters
And this brings me to the cngahllee that we face today, the challenge that automation poses for us. The challenge is not that we're running out of work. The US has added 14 million jobs since the depths of the Great Recession. The challenge is that many of those jobs are not good jobs, and many citizens cannot qfiauly for the good jobs that are being created. Employment growth in the United States and in much of the developed world looks something like a brbelal with iciennrasg poundage on either end of the bar. On the one hand, you have high-education, high-wage jobs like doctors and nrsues, programmers and engineers, marketing and seals meranags. Employment is robust in these jobs, employment growth. sailirmly, employment growth is robust in many low-skill, low-education jobs like food service, caninleg, strieucy, home health aids. Simultaneously, employment is shrinking in many middle-education, middle-wage, middle-class jobs, like blue-collar production and operative positions and white-collar clerical and sales positions. The reasons behind this ctnraotcing middle are not mysterious. Many of those middle-skill jobs use well-understood rules and procedures that can increasingly be codified in software and executed by computers. The challenge that this phenomenon creates, what economists call emlpnoemyt polarization, is that it knckos out rungs in the economic ladder, sirnhks the size of the middle class and teetarhns to make us a more stratified setcoiy. On the one hand, a set of highly paid, highly eeactdud professionals doing interesting work, on the other, a large number of citizens in low-paid jobs whose primary responsibility is to see to the comfort and htleah of the affluent. That is not my vision of progress, and I doubt that it is yours.
Open Cloze
And this brings me to the _________ that we face today, the challenge that automation poses for us. The challenge is not that we're running out of work. The US has added 14 million jobs since the depths of the Great Recession. The challenge is that many of those jobs are not good jobs, and many citizens cannot _______ for the good jobs that are being created. Employment growth in the United States and in much of the developed world looks something like a _______ with __________ poundage on either end of the bar. On the one hand, you have high-education, high-wage jobs like doctors and ______, programmers and engineers, marketing and _____ ________. Employment is robust in these jobs, employment growth. _________, employment growth is robust in many low-skill, low-education jobs like food service, ________, ________, home health aids. Simultaneously, employment is shrinking in many middle-education, middle-wage, middle-class jobs, like blue-collar production and operative positions and white-collar clerical and sales positions. The reasons behind this ___________ middle are not mysterious. Many of those middle-skill jobs use well-understood rules and procedures that can increasingly be codified in software and executed by computers. The challenge that this phenomenon creates, what economists call __________ polarization, is that it ______ out rungs in the economic ladder, _______ the size of the middle class and _________ to make us a more stratified _______. On the one hand, a set of highly paid, highly ________ professionals doing interesting work, on the other, a large number of citizens in low-paid jobs whose primary responsibility is to see to the comfort and ______ of the affluent. That is not my vision of progress, and I doubt that it is yours.
Solution
- nurses
- knocks
- qualify
- health
- similarly
- increasing
- society
- security
- threatens
- sales
- barbell
- contracting
- managers
- shrinks
- cleaning
- employment
- challenge
- educated
Original Text
And this brings me to the challenge that we face today, the challenge that automation poses for us. The challenge is not that we're running out of work. The US has added 14 million jobs since the depths of the Great Recession. The challenge is that many of those jobs are not good jobs, and many citizens cannot qualify for the good jobs that are being created. Employment growth in the United States and in much of the developed world looks something like a barbell with increasing poundage on either end of the bar. On the one hand, you have high-education, high-wage jobs like doctors and nurses, programmers and engineers, marketing and sales managers. Employment is robust in these jobs, employment growth. Similarly, employment growth is robust in many low-skill, low-education jobs like food service, cleaning, security, home health aids. Simultaneously, employment is shrinking in many middle-education, middle-wage, middle-class jobs, like blue-collar production and operative positions and white-collar clerical and sales positions. The reasons behind this contracting middle are not mysterious. Many of those middle-skill jobs use well-understood rules and procedures that can increasingly be codified in software and executed by computers. The challenge that this phenomenon creates, what economists call employment polarization, is that it knocks out rungs in the economic ladder, shrinks the size of the middle class and threatens to make us a more stratified society. On the one hand, a set of highly paid, highly educated professionals doing interesting work, on the other, a large number of citizens in low-paid jobs whose primary responsibility is to see to the comfort and health of the affluent. That is not my vision of progress, and I doubt that it is yours.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
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| employment growth |
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| high school |
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| automated teller |
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| united states |
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| inconsistent human |
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| labor market |
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| machines increasingly |
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| space shuttle |
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| shuttle challenger |
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| technology magnifies |
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| work hard |
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| typically ranked |
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| economic mobility |
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| encouraging news |
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Important Words
- added
- affluent
- aids
- automation
- bar
- barbell
- brings
- call
- challenge
- citizens
- class
- cleaning
- clerical
- codified
- comfort
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- educated
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- hand
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- highly
- home
- increasing
- increasingly
- interesting
- jobs
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- ladder
- large
- managers
- marketing
- middle
- million
- mysterious
- number
- nurses
- operative
- paid
- phenomenon
- polarization
- poses
- positions
- poundage
- primary
- procedures
- production
- professionals
- programmers
- progress
- qualify
- reasons
- recession
- responsibility
- robust
- rules
- rungs
- running
- sales
- security
- service
- set
- shrinking
- shrinks
- similarly
- simultaneously
- size
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- software
- states
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- threatens
- today
- united
- vision
- work
- world