1st wave, was the manufacturing sector in general. Its down a lot. Some call it 'off-shoring.'
2nd wave, was the overall economy, and just about every job possible being outsourced, to ther cheaper countries such as IT to India.
3rd wave is now destruction of most retail jobs, as internet retailers begin to develop a model requiring fewer and fewer workers. Some of it began as self service check out lanes, but will likely evolve to pure internet retail "show rooms" as what Best Buy has fell victim to from the likes of Amazon. People go check out the product at BB, and then order it online and delivered to their homes without tax and with "free" delivery. Software of all forms has been destroying accounting jobs or other financial related jobs for years, and will continue to do so. Its not as obvious or well advertised, but this is part of this 3rd wave too.
It wouldn't surprise me to see near humanless retail show rooms, with walking/talking robotics, and conveyor lines of product that can be moved on the showroom floor for display, and then shifted at night by robots in the back room, restocking the conveyors with the hottest item people are viewing on line. People either buy it on line, or maybe pick it up and buy at the showroom. With Obamacare now putting the nail in the coffin for far more expense, and retailers now competing for low level low quality "help" that they pay next to nothing for, its time for the robotics to step in.
http://www.chicagotr...0,5608259.story
Best Buy lopping off 2400 jobs may not seem significant, but sooner rather than later they will succumb to this shake out. People are choosing to drive less and less, and the internet greatly facilitates that lifestyle. Why the fock drive around to 4 or 5 retailers to find that TV or stereo, when you can do it far faster and easier on line ? If you are the "touchy feely" type and really need to see it in person, the show rooms will be there for you a little while longer, until those become obsolete.
Best Buy will follow the likes of Circuit City and many brick and mortars before them. banking is going to go the same way, and eventually clothing, or more general goods.
The individual mandate, along with the now 13,000 pages (and counting) new regulations that have been developed since Obambycare was ruled constitutional as a tax, will greatly accelerate the demise of the retailers who don't quickly replace human employees with more robots. Mark my words, we ain't seen nothing yet in terms of reduction of human employees at many many businesses.
The new luxury "boutique" will eventually be simply the restaurant that offers 'real' people waiting on you, and a personal human "touch" for service. Massage parlors will probably spring up everywhere too, and if you are lucky, it will be a human providing the "touch."
P.S. I've been working from home since 2005, and began doing it off and on since the late 1980's. This is going to be an ever growing trend for workers of all types. Hospitals and clinics of all types will eventually have to resort to robotics and less human contact as super robust diseases, and viruses expand a rate so fast, it will be a near impossibility to quarantine and contain them, so hospitals are actually the worst harbinger and enabler of many such diseases, and Obambycare is again, going to accelerate this change.
Your health care WILL be rationed out by your government, and you and your doctor, if you are lucky enough to have a human one, will simply not have a choice. That is what this whole legislation was about, and the many forms of increased taxes, and federal agencies, and state bureaus many of which have yet to be invented. When the dust settles from this, tomorrows healthcare coming soon, will be very very different. No one will recognize it in less than 10 years. Hundreds of thousands of new administrative jobs will be created, and the bureaucracy of it all will be overwhelming. If you hate having to dial walgreens and never getting someone live for your pills, you will absolutely loathe having to go in for surgery or other doctor/robotic visits. And I guarantee a procto exam will not be someone's finger, but something cold and hard from some machine.
