Richard,

This is an excellent question!  Perhaps my answer will stimulate others to respond.  

Although I would not disagree with the notion that robotics (e.g., technologically advanced machinery and equipment) eliminates jobs, there is more involved.  For example, I have taken educators to many firms and organizations in our region and the increasing use of technology is obvious.  At a pet food plant, the amazing speed at which pouches and cans of pet food produced is nothing short of amazing.  The former plan manager once said: "...seeing works (just) standing around is a good sign; that means the machinery is working well..."  This factory employs hundreds of workers, has expanded several times, and has relatively high rates of compensation.  Its workers must be sharp, flexible, and adept at solving problems.

This is just one of many examples and the challenges should be obvious.  What about the workers who cannot get these jobs, especially ones who were displaced from labor intensive jobs of the past?  Their plight can be extremely uncomfortable and not just financially.  The psychological toll can be even more severe.  Some sort of basic income grant might be one of several ways to address some of these issues.

Increasingly, it seems many organizations seek these attributes.  Often they are correlated with more educated workers.  It may be important to distinguish between causation and correlation here.  For example, many college graduates navigate a rather complex system that often has them have less than positive experiences (e.g., with classes or professors they dislike); however, the ones who graduate persevere, adapt, or find  away to be successful. Does college cause this, or does it attract students who already have these attributes (e.g., intelligence, ability to adapt and solve problems among others of course)?

Is a more educated workforce the solution? The answer is complex especially when we contrast causation and correlation. )See the file I attached or the link.)

Basic Income Grants may help in the short term to get by and in the longer term they may help, especially if they afford greater opportunities.  However, in many countries, the structure of jobs and income is increasingly enriching those on the higher end of the distribution on income.  The longer term effects of Basic Income Grants goes to the essence of your question.  I would suspect there are positive and negative elements.  I am sorry about the length; your question was too interesting to ignore! Hopefully, we will read many responses to an outstanding question.  

Rob

http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea17.pdf

Tomas,

You stated one of the key points I was trying to make much more clearly and succinctly when you wrote::

"Technical progress does certainly have the potential to create new jobs elsewhere. A problem of recent times is however that technical progress is skill-biased, that is it destroys low-skilled jobs and creates high-skilled jobs."    

I tried to make the case that more educated workers frequently have more options and flexibility. 

In addition, except for a few anomalies for Asians, you were right on target about race and ethnicity and that unemployment rates tend to decline when adult workers have more education, even when controlling for race.  

Rob

Dear Tomas,

Yes, of course, the natural tendency of capitalism is "creative destruction", ie, the destruction of less-skilled jobs and the creation of more-skilled jobs. However, the danger in the current phase of technological innovation, especially in robotics, is that jobs are being eliminated at all skill levels, including the jobs, for example, of accountants and journalists. What seems to be happening is an overall decline in productive employment opportunities. This trend, if it is a trend, is not necessarily a bad thing - if the extra income generated by productivity gains is redistributed - hence, the basic income - and people develop a new life-style not so focused on (increasingly scarce) employment. In short, are we not facing a rupture in the normal operation of capitalism, and if so, what should we do about it?

But Tomas, you are mainly arguing what should be the case according to the theories of economics. Not for the first time, what is happening in the real world is diverging from the deductive models of economists.

Dear Tomas,

I think your final paragraph is very revealing.

What I am talking about are trends, not current realities. Various experts have estimated that, in the next couple of decades, we may suffer a net loss of 10-46% of jobs owing to robotics, advanced algorithms, big data and 3Dprinting. Further education is not the answer because, with fewer jobs to go around, the qualifications needed to flip burgers will merely be inflated. A Basic Income Grant may be one part of the answer to what appears to be a growing reality of fewer productive jobs.

But Tomas, in an open global economy, companies and individuals may decide to use profits to speculate on financial markets rather than invest profits in productive facilities. Or they may invest abroad, in countries with low environmental and social regulations. There are various other avenues than the ones you pinpoint,.

Richard