Instead, the disappearance of such jobs in many regions of the US has resulted in social breakdown of many regional communities and the advent of disasters like an opioid epidemic.

Schoendorf's gloomy assessment of the coming jobs market was one of the themes at the ADC Forum's annual leadership retreat on the weekend.

Many speakers referred to the pace of the change in areas like artificial intelligence and robotics and the fact the impact of this is accelerating simultaneously in so many countries. Many argue societies remain totally unprepared for this massive and destabilising shift.

A much more optimistic view is put by prominent US economist Dr Woody Brock, despite his shared alarm about rapidly falling education standards in America.

Woody Brock points out 70 per cent of US jobs in 1900 were eliminated over the following 100 years, also largely due to automation. But unemployment did not rise overall.

He points out 70 per cent of US jobs in 1900 were eliminated over the following 100 years, also largely due to automation. But unemployment did not rise overall and despite the depression, living standards rose dramatically over that period.

In Brock's view, only hamfisted and counterproductive attempts by governments to intervene in the labour market and prevent the process of "creative destruction" will stop this pattern being repeated in this century. No one, he says, can even imagine the types of job titles that will come into being in coming decades.

Most of those jobs will inevitably be in services rather than manufacturing or agriculture. It was not that long ago when many would have thought the job description of barista was a bad spelling of barrister.


But even in services, the middle-class jobs that would once have been considered impregnable – think lawyers and accountants and bankers – are rapidly being challenged by AI as much as by cheaper offshore human options. The consensus at the ADC Forum was that "we ain't see nothin' yet".

That makes the real argument over what will happen to wages relative to what used to be well-paid jobs.

Brock argues there is no reason to believe average wages will decline as many economists suggest. In any case, he says, living standards will continue to rise due to constant improvement in the quality and range of goods and services available at ever cheaper prices as part of the digital revolution.

But others are as worried as Schoendorf that conditions of pay and job security are fundamentally changing along with the nature of the labour market.

It's why there's increasing talk in academia about the need for some form of universal minimum wage, whether or not people have an actual job.

Most economists dismiss the idea of being paid not to work as unaffordable as well as socially undesirable and cite the fact that unemployment is trending down rather than up.

In the US, for example, unemployment is now well under 5 per cent, less than half it was in 2010, despite complaints the recovery has been weak.

But the rise of underemployment, of the "gig economy" and the trend to contract work demonstrate the disappearance of the status quo in terms of any notion of employment translating into a long-term job in one company with established benefits. Millennials already know no such thing. (And let's not even start on the future of journalism!)


While small and medium-sized businesses and the power of individual entrepreneurialism will no doubt continue to provide plenty of employment opportunities and potential payoffs, it's not clear at what price that will deliver for most people.

What is clear is that the combination of lower wages and "lost" jobs has become a potent political force in many developed economies, especially in the decade since the start of the global financial crisis.

That has been most spectacularly demonstrated by the election of Donald Trump but it's only one aspect of a broader community mood favouring greater nationalism and protectionism over globalisation and free trade.

Just ask about Malcolm Turnbull about his own job security.