[epicviking]

You can't outsource customer facing jobs. Someone has to work the cash registers.

You can't outsource construction jobs. Someone has to update our nation's crumbling infrastructure.

You can't outsource healthcare jobs. Someone has to change the IV bags and push around the stretchers.

You can't outsource teaching. Someone has to teach future generations about math and science and history and puberty.

You can't outsource the maintenance and repair of our utilities. Electricians and plumbers, they're definitely going to be in demand.

Reports of the death of the American blue collar job are greatly exaggerated.

[cperciva]

Someone has to work the cash registers.

You sure about that? I've seen a lot of supermarkets going self-checkout lately. Sure, it's not out-sourcing in the usual sense; but it is replacing workers with something cheaper (equipment which was probably manufactured in another country).

Someone has to update our nation's crumbling infrastructure.

True, but the number of workers you need depends on the construction techniques you use. If manpower is expensive, you buy prefabricated components and only do the final assembly on site.

Someone has to change the IV bags and push around the stretchers.

True, but technology and a willingness to spend more on equipment can reduce the number of people you need to do this. (e.g., "smart" IV bags which alert staff when they need to be changed, rather than having nurses walk around checking the bags.)

Someone has to teach future generations about math and science and history and puberty.

Khan Academy.

Electricians and plumbers, they're definitely going to be in demand.

True, but the more expensive they are, the greater the pressure will be to create hot water heaters which don't need to be replaced every five years.

Reports of the death of the American blue collar job are greatly exaggerated.

There are a lot of job categories which will never be eliminated entirely, sure -- but most of them can still be dramatically downsized via the application of technology and sufficient quantities of money.

Nobody is so essential to the continuation of civilization that they can set their own wages. There's always going to be a point where people will say "you know, we've got a cheaper option".

[sixtofour]

"If manpower is expensive, you buy prefabricated components and only do the final assembly on site."

Not infrastructure, but that's exactly what Boeing has done for years, assemble airplanes out of prefabbed subassemblies.

When Boeing gets a contract to sell planes to, say, China or Japan, part of the deal is often that the subassemblies (wings, body sections, whatever) are made in that country, shipped to the US and assembled by Boeing.

Airplanes are a more controlled and regular construction environment than highways, but I don't see why it won't become more common. Residential and commercial buildings too, I suppose. Suburban houses are already cookie cutter these days.

[ericd]

1. Cash Registers - Automation

2. Construction - There is a glut of unskilled construction labor right now, though, coming off the housing boom. Could conceivably be automated, but it's probably a lot farther off.

3. Healthcare - Hard to automate, but the things you mention seem less so than construction.

4. Teaching - Scalable teaching methods - the few best professors can teach a vast number of students relative to what used to be possible. Khan Academy and Stanford's upcoming online classes seem like early stabs at what I think will eventually become the norm.

5. Maintenance work - you're probably right, this is very case-by-case, and requires a lot of training to be able to deal with all contingencies.

Overall, I don't think the future of American blue collar labor's supply vs. demand is very bright at all, unless there's a big uptick in demand for hard-to-automate fields.

EDIT: And when I say automation, I usually mean single-purpose robots or devices that handle the busywork parts of things, like self-checkout machines. cperciva covers this pretty well in his healthcare section. General AI is obviously very hard, and good construction bots would probably need something like that if they were to be able to deal with problems and exceptions on their own.