The NPR claims the most common job in 29 of 50 US states is truck driving.
This seems a bit overboard, and depends on how jobs are categorized, but here
is the chart.
The above chart from NPR "Planet Money" report that says ...
We used data from the Census Bureau, which has two
catch-all categories: "managers not elsewhere classified" and
"salespersons not elsewhere classified." Because those categories
are broad and vague to the point of meaninglessness, we excluded them from
our map.
Self-Driving Trucks Will Hit Us Like Ton of Bricks
Please consider Self-Driving Trucks Are Going to Hit Us Like a Human-Driven
Truck.
It should be clear at a
glance just how dependent the American economy is on truck drivers. According
to the American Trucker Association, there are 3.5 million professional truck
drivers in the US, and an additional 5.2 million people employed within the
truck-driving industry who don’t drive the trucks. That’s 8.7 million
trucking-related jobs.
One further important detail to consider is that truck drivers are well-paid.
They provide a middle class income of about $40,000 per year. That’s a higher
income than just about half (46%) of all tax filers, including those of
married households. They are also greatly comprised by those without college
educations. Truck driving is just about the last job in the country to
provide a solid middle class salary without requiring a post-secondary degree.
Truckers are essentially the last remnant of an increasingly impoverished
population once gainfully employed in manufacturing before those middle
income jobs were mostly all shipped overseas.
Short-Term Job Outlook of the American Trucker
The trucking industry expects to see 21% more truck driving jobs by 2020.
They also expect to see an increasing shortfall in drivers, with over 100,000
jobs open and unable to find drivers to fill them. Higher demand than supply
of truckers also points to higher pay, so for at least the next five years,
the future is looking great for truck drivers. The only thing that could put
a damper on this would be if the demand for truck drivers were to say… drive
off a sharp cliff.
That cliff is the self-driving truck. So when will the process end? When will
self-driving cars conquer our roads?
Adoption Timeline
According to Morgan Stanley, complete autonomous capability will be here by
2022, followed by massive market penetration by 2026 and the cars we know and
love today then entirely extinct in another 20 years thereafter.
Other Estimates
- Navigant Research: “By 2035, sales of autonomous vehicles
will reach 95.4 million annually, representing 75% of all light-duty
vehicle sales.”
- IHS Automotive: “There should be nearly 54 million
self-driving cars in use globally by 2035.”
- ABI Research: “Half of new vehicles shipping in North
America to have driverless, robotic capabilities by 2032.”
- Nissan: “In 2020 we’re talking more autonomous drive
capability. It’s going to be an evolutionary process and 2020 will be
the first year to truly see some of these capabilities start to be
introduced in the vehicle.”
I think the the timeline is
off a bit in two ways.
- Technology change and adoption are happening at a
breath-taking pace. Penetration will happen faster than most of the
estimates above suggest.
- Truck hauling jobs will vanish faster than inner-city truck
driving jobs.
At $40,000 a year, the incentive to replace truck drivers with software is
massive. And it will happen. Not only that, but insurance costs will drop.
Most truck accidents are caused by user error: Driving too fast, driving
while tired, driving intoxicated, etc.
Robots don't drink, don't get tired, won't drive unsafe to get to a
destination faster, etc. My initial vision is that drivers may still be
needed for inner-city driving (at least initially), but most long-haul
operations will quickly vanish as soon as licensing is complete in most of
the states.
What About Taxis, Uber?
Taxi and limo driving jobs will also vanish.
Travis Kalanick, the CEO and founder of Uber, said at a
conference last year that he’d replace human Uber drivers with a fleet of
self-driving cars in a second. “You’re not just paying for the car — you’re
paying for the other dude in the car,” he said. “When there’s no other dude
in the car, the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than owning a
vehicle.” That, he said, will “bring the cost below the cost of ownership for
everybody, and then car ownership goes away.”
People keep emailing me about insurance. Many believe the
cost of insurance will skyrocket. I believe accident rates will plunge, and
insurance costs with it.
So what happens to a lot of insurance salesmen? Claims investigators?
As for car ownership, those who live in cities and seldom leave their city
will have a huge incentive to dump their car. That too is a massive
disruption.
Think of the manufacturing jobs that will vanish. Then again, cars will be
nearly entirely robot-made, so those jobs will have already vanished.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
