I agree with the author that programming (not just "tech") literacy should be part of every curriculum, I don't think this will solve the unemployment problem.
Technology is very good at creating value, but not very good at creating jobs. All 72 tech companies in the S&P 500 combined employ about 2.3m people [1], whereas just Wal-mart employes about 2.1m people. Those numbers are worldwide employment, but for reference, the US had 15m unemployed in November.
Even the breakout, unimaginable success that is Google only employs about 28,000 people. And I'm sure that for every hire Google has made, they've displaced many more people that used to depend on print advertising. (To be clear, I'm not saying that technology is net bad for the economy. Technology creates a lot of value for the individuals that work and invest in it, and for the economy as a whole. However, technology is not a massive creator of jobs.)
So unless startups become a multiple of the size of the entire S&P 500 technology sector, they're not going to make a noticeable dent on unemployment.
Jorge this is a fair point. However, over time I have to believe that the shift to post-industrial will create more jobs. You're right that this doesn't absorb anything close to 10% in the short or medium term.
Also, I wasn't arguing in my post that this was a solution to 10%; just that in my world and sector there's lots of jobs despite this big unemployment number. And we need more technical literacy (not just programming skills as some commenters have misinterpreted) throughout our education system.
For example, every business class I took as recently as 2003 involved products in boxes and shipping.
We have automated the hell out of programming (compilers, shared libraries, higher level languages, etc), but as soon as we do that, they just expect us to be more productive :)
I think it will be still be a long time before robots replace humans, even at Wal-Mart-like jobs. There are a few places where it's appropriate (self checkout, for instance), but there are things that humans do without batting an eyes are very very hard or expensive for robots (spoken communications, visual and auditory classification, spatial navigation and obstacle negotiation).
Humans aren't really that expensive honestly. Considering that the rent on a few servers from EC2 can equal the hourly wage of a Wal-Mart employee, it's going to be a while before these equations start working out.
It's not just self-checkout, but things like vending machines (big in Japan, will eventually be big everywhere else; this is starting to occur now with DVD rental vending machines) and robot warehouses (Kiva already does pretty well with this). Also Amazon and Netflix. Their warehouses may not be run by robots, but are extremely automated. This also applies to food - there's no reason automats can't make a comeback. I also don't doubt for a second that one of the first things Google will do with self-driving cars is automate the trucking industry.
You're absolutely right about people not being very expensive though. Labor costs actually make manual manufacturing in China less expensive than in fully roboticized factories in Japan or the USA for many things.
Technology is very good at creating value, but not very good at creating jobs. All 72 tech companies in the S&P 500 combined employ about 2.3m people [1], whereas just Wal-mart employes about 2.1m people. Those numbers are worldwide employment, but for reference, the US had 15m unemployed in November.
Even the breakout, unimaginable success that is Google only employs about 28,000 people. And I'm sure that for every hire Google has made, they've displaced many more people that used to depend on print advertising. (To be clear, I'm not saying that technology is net bad for the economy. Technology creates a lot of value for the individuals that work and invest in it, and for the economy as a whole. However, technology is not a massive creator of jobs.)
So unless startups become a multiple of the size of the entire S&P 500 technology sector, they're not going to make a noticeable dent on unemployment.
[1] I compiled a spreadsheet (https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqpDDf0Sr4EXdDJMZEt...) based on information available on Wikipedia[2] and through Google searches
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_S%26P_500_companies and individual company pages