What Is the Future of the English Working Class?
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UNDERSTANDING ENGLAND AS IT IS INSPIRING ENGLAND AS IT COULD BE WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS? A report on the impact of automation on English Working Class Jobs Future of Work: Speech to Chatham House – Liam Byrne MP Places and Prosperity – Lucy Powell MP INTRODUCTION Fifty five years ago, the historian EP Thompson published the ground breaking History of the English Working Class. But what's its future? Policy-makers agree that automation is coming fast - and think technology will have a bigger impact on wages than tradei. New jobs will be created – but lots of existing jobs will be lost. And overwhemingly, its the working class which will get hit hardest - with huge implications for the future of inequality. On current trends, the top 1% is set to control an extraordinary 2/3 of global wealth by 2030 – up from 50% todayii. The rise of the robots may make this problem worse. 1. Red Shift analysis shows that five times more working class jobs may be lost through automation than the shutdown of the coal and steel industry put together during the 1980’s: between 2.1 million and 2.9 million working class jobs - overwhelmingly in retail, transportation and routine manufacturing. 2 2. House of Commons library analysis of OECD figures shows 1,024,000 jobs will be lost amongst amongst the poorest 10% of UK workers (under £7.64/ hour) - that’s 32% of all low pay jobs 3. Amongst the bottom 25% of the jobs market, (under £9/ hour), 2,128,000 jobs are at high risk of automation - that’s about a quarter of low paid jobs. By contrast almost no jobs are forecast to be lost amongst higher income groups. 4. Tory seats in England will be hit harder than Labour seats: meaning there is therefore a political prize to be won for Labour if it can offer a better way of dealing with automation than the Tories. • 4.08 million jobs may be lost in English Tory seats (around 30.7% of jobs in every seat) compared to • 3.45 million jobs may be lost in English Labour seats (around 30.3% of jobs in every seat) • That’s an average of over 14,000 jobs in every constituency 5. Exclusive opinion polling by Opinium shows that people are worried and want government to do more • Almost 7-in-10 (69%) say the government should provide money for re-training if someone loses their job due to automation. • A quarter (27%) of Brits think the government is doing too little in response to automation in the workplace - although this rises to 35% in the North West and 29% in the South East. • Half think that increasing automation in the workplace will make it harder for them to earn a decent wage, or find a new job in the future and working class voters are more likely to say that automation will make it harder to earn a decent wage in the future (54% of C2DE vs 46% of ABC1). • Increasing automation will make it harder to... o Earn a decent wage (49%) o Find a new job in the future (47%) o Reach their earning potential (46%) o To change job roles (41%) • A third of workers think it is likely that human jobs or tasks will be replaced by automation in the next 10 years - but this rises to nearly half in the North East and West Midlands 3 Question: How likely do you think it is that automation will replace jobs or tasks that were previously performed largely or wholly by a human being in your job or profession over the next 10 years? % saying ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’ North East 48 % West Midlands 46 % London 41 % South East 36 % South West 35 % Yorkshire and 31 % Humberside North West 30 % East of England 24 % East Midlands 19 % Liam Byrne MP, who prepared the report said: “The governments of the eighties made terrible mistakes when they let industrial change destroy jobs and communities. Yet we’re now on course to make the same mistakes again and once more, it’s the English working class which is at the sharp end. “Five times more jobs be lost due to the rise of the robots, than were lost by the demise of coal and steel, and most people think it's going to be harder to earn a decent wage or get a better job. “Workers are clear: they want Government to help them retrain for a better future. So it’s time we came up with a proper plan to help us earn a way to a better life in the years to come. ““We are at a fork in the road. Unless we take dramatic steps now to help people adapt to changing technology, it’ll be impossible to reverse massive trends in rising inequality for the rest of the 21st century." 4 Opinium senior researcher Jack Tadman said: “With 3-in-10 (29%) saying they don’t know which professions are likely to be impacted by automation, public awareness and understanding of how automation will impact society is low. “This presents an opportunity for both government and businesses to promote the potential benefits of automation, with younger workers perhaps the best place to start: workers aged 18-34 were the only age group to feel more positive than negative about the impact of automation on their job/profession (29% vs. 24% respectively). “Therefore, it perhaps isn’t surprising that half of the UK think that the government should help people to learn new skills in response to automation in the workplace, and almost 4-in-10 say the government should be educating people about the opportunities it presents.” 5 DATA TABLES Jobs at likely to be automatable across current income distribution Jobs likely to be automatable by 2030 in the UK Income 0-10% 10-25% 25-50% 50- 75- 90- distribution (under £7.64 (£7.64 and £8.97 (£8.97-£12.49 75% 90% 100% (percentiles) an hour) an hour) an hour) UK jobs at risk 32% 23% 16% 5% 0% 0% Millions of 3.2 4.8 8 workers Estimated lost 1.024 1.104 1.28 3.408 jobs (million) OECD estimates with ONS income data: The Risk of Automation for Jobs in OECD Countries, Arntz et al 2016 Jobs at risk through automation across English constituencies Jobs at high risk of automation by 2030 Across English parliamentary constituencies Average no. jobs at Proportion of jobs at Total jobs at high risk risk risk Conservative Constituencies 14,014 30.7% 4,077,960 Labour Constituencies 15,142 30.3% 3,452,451 All English Constituencies 14,435 30.5% 7,766,225 The Impact of AI in UK Constituencies, October 2017, Future Advocacy 6 SELECTED WORKING CLASS JOB CURRENT FORECAST LEVEL POTENTIAL JOB CATEGORIES AT HIGH RISK OF NUMBER OF OF AUTOMATION LOSS AUTOMATION WORKERS 813 ASSEMBLERS AND ROUTINE 266, 000 90% 240,000 OPERATIVES 821 ROAD TRANSPORT DRIVERS 945,000 80% 756,000 822 MOBILE MACHINE DRIVERS AND 168,000 80% 134,000 OPERATIVES 926 ELEMENTARY STORAGE 416,000 80% 333,000 OCCUPATIONS 921 ELEMENTARY ADMINISTRATION 198,000 90% 99,000 OCCUPATIONS 711 SALES ASSISTANTS AND RETAIL 1,457,000 63% 918,000 CASHIERS 721 CUSTOMER SERVICE OCCUPATIONS 472,000 63% 297,000 722 CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGERS 154,000 63% 97,000 AND SUPERVISORS 925 ELEMENTARY SALES OCCUPATIONS 130,000 63% 82,000 TOTAL JOBS LOST THROUGH 4,076,000 2,956,000 AUTOMATION 1971 COAL INDUSTRY JOBS 290,000 1971 STEEL INDUSTRY JOBS 325,000 TOTAL 615,000 AUTOMATION JOB LOSS AS 4.8 X PROPORTION OF COAL + STEEL Overall job numbers from Labour Force Survey; Automation estimates for categories, 813, 821, 822, 711, 721, 722, 925 are from Carl Frey, Technology At Work, V3.0 Automating eCommerce (CitiGPS/Oxford Martin School, August 2017); Automation estimates for categories for 813 and 921 from Carl Frey, The Future of Employment (Osborne & Frey, Oxford Martin School, 2013) 7 NOTES TO EDITORS 1. The research was presented by Red Shift to a special event in the House of Commons chaired by Shabana Mahmood, and bringing together: • Dr Carl Frey, University of Oxford, Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment • Prof Rob Ford, University of Manchester, author of Revolt on the Right • Prof Mike Savage, London School of Economics, author of Identities and Social Change in Britain since 1940 • Lucy Powell MP, Co-Chair of Red Shift • Red Shift: The Future of the English Working Class, Wednesday 6th June 2018, 6.30PM, Wilson Room, House of Commons. 2. About Red Shift. Red Shift brings together a group of English Labour MP’s and activists determined to shine a spotlight on how England is changing, how peoples’ ambitions are changing – and how Labour needs to change to win. www.redshiftlabour.co.uk 8 FUTURE OF WORK Remarks to Chatham House Thursday 24th May, 2018 RT HON LIAM BYRNE MP 9 Introduction Thank you very much for inviting me to speak today – congratulations to Chatham House for hosting this important conference today - and to the Institute for the Future of Work, which launches today. The doorstep is generally where we pick up on the public’s sixth sense about what’s really going on in the world and for me it’s been striking that in the last two elections I’ve had conversations with voters about their worries about the future. One was in the printing industry. Another was a lorry driver.