“Evidence That Robots Are Winning the Race for American Jobs” (NYT) But Here is Why, and They Shouldn’t

Source: Evidence That Robots Are Winning the Race for American Jobs – The New York Times

I wrote why, at least in my opinion>

The keyword is “SKILLS”, as in “If you worked in Detroit for 10 years, you don’t have the skills to go into health care..” (quoting Prof. Acemoglu)

I don’t believe that statement would be nearly as accurate if it were applied in 1975 to a 1965 high school grad. Because of the “skills” and critical thinking ability that the 1965 grad would have acquired in high school, she would have a much better chance of learning the skills necessary for that health care job.

(To see some of the most important reasons why that degradation in the quality of a high school education has happened, see my blog inside-higher-ed , especially the category “How Universities Dumb Down K-12.)

It would be interesting if the authors looked at the work of Raj Chetty and his colleagues at Harvard to (1) determine if those with a good high school education were transitioning to good jobs, and (2) what effect would that have on employment for those replaced by robots.