1960: Warehouse Workers
Although warehouse workers are still commonplace today, there is one aspect of the job that has largely become obsolete — those who sorted the material goods. Up until the 1960s, warehouses hired employees to sort each item as it enters a warehouse, but as technology exploded, those jobs were rendered unnecessary.
Electronic equipment took the place of human workers, which was ideal for production companies that wanted to save a buck, but it put thousands of people out of jobs.
President John F. Kennedy praised the changes in his speech on June 7, 1960, saying the replacement of machines will positively impact the future. “In the future, as the complexity, the versatility, and the precision of modern technology continues its inevitable advance, thousands of processes and functions now performed by men will be done, more cheaply and more efficiently, by machine,” he said.
