Jan. 15, 2014: Over Christmas, my dad, grandpa, and I were sitting in the living room chatting while the rest of the family was in the dining room munching on some holiday treats.

We were talking about unemployment, specifically, how E-ZPass killed hundreds of thousands of jobs for tollbooth workers. A majority of the tollbooths open are now just for E-ZPass, and the remaining few are for cash. Even with the remaining few, at least one of them is for cash and E-ZPass combined. The booths with E-ZPass have no need for a worker to be there, because all the work is done by automated systems.
Our conversation focused on the fact that not only are these workers losing their jobs, but workers in other places are also losing their jobs. Retail stores and supermarkets now have self-checkout machines that do not require the use of a cashier. Soon enough there will be no more jobs for cashiers, as it will all be done by technology. The CVS in Bronxville has three self-checkout machines and one cashier. This requires you to use the self-checkout machine unless you want to wait in a long line for the cashier to scan your items for you.

I work at Value Drugs in Bronxville, and it is one of the only retail stores of its kind that I know of that has no self-checkout machines. Besides the managers, the store runs on part-time workers. I assume this saves the company money even though there are about 12 cashiers and 6 stock boys.

I am certain that our progression in technology is making everyone's life easier by allowing us to not use our brains as much. It is also hurting us by making us all lazy, sitting home doing nothing while the robots we use are working much faster and more efficiently than we humans.

All this talk about technology and unemployment got me thinking, so I began to do some research of my own. I found an article by the Associated Press that examines employment data from 20 different countries. The researchers interviewed people from different jobs, and the research revealed that almost all the jobs disappearing are in industries that pay wages ranging from $38,000 to $68,000.

In the article, Art Liscano, a meter reader in Fresno, California, knows there is a chance he could eventually lose his job. For 26 years he has driven from house to house checking how much electricity Pacific Gas & Electric customers have used. Now these meters are being replaced with digital versions that can collect information without human help. Of the 50 full-time meter readers hired by his company six years ago, just six remain.

This is why going to college is important. Almost all the jobs that can be obtained with little to no college education are being replaced by newer technology instead of new employees. It is a very big problem for the people who are not big-time CEOs running and managing multimillion dollar companies. We, as a society, realize this is happening, but there is no way to stop it. It seems that technology will just keep progressing.

Pictured here:  Student reporter Steven Weiner.

Photo by A. Warner