COVID19: Worker Exodus

The two headlines are intricately related. Given the exodus of older workers, there is an urgency to transfer institutional knowledge from the older worker to the younger worker. In my analogy, the older worker needs to teach the younger one how to break the physics of the game. This transfer of magic requires older workers and younger workers to work in the same space. This transfer requires the building of a relationship, it is not merely a matter of supervising or grading work. The replacements need to see for themselves how the physics of this game works for the older worker.

Automation as substitute for training

Much attention is spent on the job-loss implications of introduction of automation to improve productivity.   Meanwhile, automation is also used for job-preservation of older workers in outdated yet still essential practices, and this too has some unfortunate implications for the future.   Eventually the simulation of an earlier age will fail catastrophically in the fact that that age no longer exists.   Alternatively, eventually we will run out of older workers who can work in that simulation.