The most missed message of the current jobs recession isn't that jobs have gone overseas. In fact, some jobs are coming back to America. The real problem is how many jobs will never come back due to automation.

In our "End of Work" series, we've highlighted the ideas put forth by Jeremy Rifkin, which can summarized as follows. Over the past several decades, American corporations have moved jobs overseas. At the same time, automation has replaced jobs in the U.S. permanently while the government, and corporations have not created enough of a safety net or done enough to prepare the jobless to do something else.

Thus, when the economy hit the tank in 2008, as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis, those jobs that were still active and were lost, aren't likely to be coming back. In fact, two authors, Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist and director of the M.I.T. Center for Digital Business, and Andrew P. McAfee, associate director and principal research scientist at the center, in a newly published E-book, titled, "Race Against the Machine" argue that "A faltering economy explains much of the job shortage in America, but advancing technology has sharply magnified the effect," according to a report in The New York Times.

In fact, this is a departure for these authors, which The Times reports, have spent most of their research time and effort focusing "mainly on the benefits of advancing technology." And they are not alone. According to The Times: "In the current issue of the McKinsey Quarterly, W. Brian Arthur, an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, warns that technology is quickly taking over service jobs, following the waves of automation of farm and factory work."

The topic of machines taking over human jobs has come up multiple times during past economic slumps. Yet, according to the New York Times, Mr. Brynjolfsson and Mr. McAfee say that the combination of "faster and cheaper computers" along with "clever" software have created an environment in which machines "capabilities that were once thought to be distinctively human, like understanding speech, translating from one language to another and recognizing patterns." The net result is that "automation is rapidly moving beyond factories to jobs in call centers, marketing and sales — parts of the services sector, which provides most jobs in the economy."

Try saying "representative" to an automated algorithm at the telephone company. We used to get around the long waits fairly well. Most recently, when we tried, the machine answered, "I know you want to speak to someone, and I will connect you as soon as you answer a few more questions." That sent the creepmeter reading in our brain to red.

And this isn't an overnight thing. According to The Times: "During the last recession, the authors write, one in 12 people in sales lost their jobs, for example. And the downturn prompted many businesses to look harder at substituting technology for people, if possible. Since the end of the recession in June 2009, they note, corporate spending on equipment and software has increased by 26 percent, while payrolls have been flat." Furthermore, the Times adds: "Productivity growth in the last decade, at more than 2.5 percent, they observe, is higher than the 1970s, 1980s and even edges out the 1990s. Still the economy, they write, did not add to its total job count, the first time that has happened over a decade since the Depression." That's one of the reasons that companies continue to report record earnings while fewer people buy products.

The authors seem to think that it makes little sense to fight the machines. Their recommendation is that “the key to winning the race is not to compete against machines but to compete with machines.”

As we've said before. They made movies about this. They were the "Terminator" series.

Conclusion

The end of work is not just upon us but well on its way to wherever the trend leads it. Machines are in every aspect of life. We write on them. We used them for recreation. And they are increasingly in every aspect of our lives.

To be sure, there is an up side to this. Anyone who is an information junky loves their smart phone and their PC or tablet. Being connected makes life easier in many respects. Yet, if you lose your job to a machine, it makes life harder to live, on many levels.

The MIT professors do deliver useful information and come to a wide conclusion. Those who can harness the machines will be the most successful.

When you understand the big picture, the next step is how to survive and profit from what lies ahead. That's why we recommend: "Market Timing For Dummies." and "Trading Futures For Dummies." The Trading Manuals for All Seasons. Also Available As Kindle Books.