Autonomous Vehicles by Clifford Winston

Author:Clifford Winston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Similar jobs will be created when companies start to provide autonomous delivery services. Viscelli (2018) concludes that the current jobs most at risk of displacement are long-distance-driving jobs with few specialized tasks, representing fewer than 300,000 drivers. Yankelevich and others (2018) reaches a similar conclusion.11

The shift from owning to sharing vehicles may actually turn out to increase total production and employment in the automobile industry. On the one hand, vehicle use will be much greater, and far fewer vehicles will be left idle. At the same time, it is likely that a plethora of specialized vehicles will be developed over time in response to travelers’ preferences. For example, certain vehicles designed for work trips might have a conference table with adequate seating capacity for meetings; vehicles that specialize in local shopping trips might have flexible capacity to carry different kinds of cargo; specialty vehicles for long-distance pleasure trips could facilitate sleeping; and the like. Thus the reduction in production of “standard” vehicles may be offset by new production of specialized vehicles that are shared.

Different types of autonomous vehicles could facilitate new services and increase employment. For example, autonomous vehicles could be used to provide restaurant and even hotel service for people while traveling, free transportation to increase turnout at certain events or patronage at certain stores, and trucking services that use drones, if necessary, to provide the last-mile delivery.

The development of specialty vehicles and new services suggests that autonomous vehicles could create positive spillover employment effects. For example, as people are able to consume individualized content during their drive and as new viewing technologies are developed to enable consumers to enjoy their drive time more, internet and media companies might experience growth in demand. Other industries that are likely to gain jobs include telecommunications, because firms in the industry will play a crucial role in facilitating data flow that is necessary to ensure the safety and efficiency of a system of autonomous vehicles, and electronics, computer science, and chemistry, because research advances by companies in those industries would affect and be affected by the evolution of autonomous vehicles (Giarratana 2018). Finally, when autonomous electric vehicles are adopted, additional electricity, charging stations, and semiconductors will be necessary, which will create more jobs by increasing the output of utilities, telecommunications operators, and chipmakers.

Kane and Tomer (2018) provides a rough estimate that the autonomous-vehicle industry—that is, digital mobility—could employ nearly 10 million workers. In addition, because the technology would improve accessibility to jobs, enhance job matching, and generate economic growth, widespread use of autonomous vehicles could lead to additional employment outside of digital mobility. Although it is always difficult to predict the effects that a new technology will have on employment, the many positive effects of autonomous vehicles on jobs are likely to offset the loss in employment among displaced drivers and possibly among certain automobile production workers.12

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