Automation will kill off 15 million jobs in the next 20 years says a report from the indtitute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).

The report says that 2 million jobs in retail will disappear by 2020, and 600,000 will go in manufacturing.

Robot-owners will get rich and displaced workers will get poorer – much like the Victorian mill-owners snd their over-worked, under-paid employees.

Similar reports came out in the 1960s when the invention of the microprocessor was said to presage an time when people would have to be educated for leisure and when a three day working week would be the norm.

This report says that automation must become “politicised,” with higher wage floors, an education system that promotes creativity and skills that complement machines, and a shorter working week to fairly share productivity gains, and possibly a universal basic income to supplement labour market income.

The White House issued a similar report earlier this year and the World Economic Forum issued one in January which said that automation would destroy 6 million jobs by 2020.

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