THE BOTTOM LINE

If you think your profession is dying, it could soon be gone

Younger workers, foreseeing the fall of horse-drawn carriages, began to shun the job, creating expected obsolescence

    • Some signs exist of the “anticipation factor” shaping labour supply in the degrees young people pursue.
    • Some signs exist of the “anticipation factor” shaping labour supply in the degrees young people pursue. PHOTO: REUTERS
    Published Wed, Jul 29, 2026 · 03:18 PM

    IT IS often easier to see the future coming than to predict how quickly it will arrive. In 1895, Thomas Edison said it was “only a question of time when the carriages and trucks in every larger city will be run with motors”.

    The following year, German engineer Gottlieb Daimler made the first motorised lorry. Yet, it would be another 20 years or so until commercial lorries became really widespread across America after World War I.

    This raises an interesting question, one relevant to the economic moment in which we find ourselves today.