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 Gottlieb Daimler made the first motorised truck. Yet it would be another 20 years or so until commercial trucks became widespread across the United States after the first World War.
This raises an interesting question, one that is relevant to the economic moment in which we find ourselves today. When it seems as if an occupation or skill is doomed to become obsolete, even though it hasn’t happened yet, how do people respond? Do they adjust proactively, and if so, how do those choices shape the labour market?
In the case of “teamsters” – people who drove teams of horses pulling wagons loaded with goods before motorised trucks took over – the adjustment was made mostly by young people.
Why is Tom Brady debasing himself in a public beef with Logan Paul?
I stop the car on Shrewsbury Road and wonder: ‘Who can afford to live in houses like these?’
We’re feeling the heat across Europe but failing to heed the cause
My Finglas accent was derided at home – but in Boston, the way I talked was admired
The average age of the occupation began to creep up between 1900 and 1910 as fewer young people chose to enter, one economic paper has reported, even though there were only 10,000 trucks registered nationwide.
Over the following decade – which the paper describes as a period of “anticipatory dread” – the occupation’s workforce aged further and began to shrink.
[ Number of ICT specialists across EU to fall short of 2030 targetsOpens in new window ]
Between 1920 and 1930, as the number of trucks increased dramatically, the number of “teamsters” fell sharply, with the number of younger workers decreasing more than older ones. As a result, the authors wrote, “despite the heavy physical demands, driving a team of horses had become an older man’s job”.
Do we see any evidence of the same thing happening today? A recent working paper by Danial Salman examined whether the supply of truck drivers is being affected by the anticipation of autonomous vehicles.
The paper found a sharp fall in commercial driver licensing in those Zip codes in California in which autonomous cars have been tested or deployed on the roads.
Aer Lingus job cuts and Ryanair’s profits plunge - what is happening in the Irish aviation sector?
Although robotaxis are not the same as self-driving trucks, perhaps seeing driverless vehicles on the streets is enough to make some people see the end of the road. (The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, meanwhile, a union with roots in the days of horse-drawn wagons, is fighting for greater regulation of the technology.)
There is a lot to be said for transitions that happen gradually enough that occupations can shrink over time through a lower supply of people entering. It is certainly a lot less painful for individuals than abrupt changes in demand that eject workers from their jobs. But problems can emerge when anticipation runs too far ahead of reality.
In 2017 the Financial Times ran an article called “Out of road: driverless vehicles are replacing the trucker” in which one 67-year-old American trucker gestured at a car park full of 18-wheelers and said: “In 10 or 15 years, these will all be autonomous trucks.”
Aer Lingus job cuts and Ryanair’s profits plunge - what is happening in the Irish aviation sector?
Almost 10 years later, commercial driverless trucking on public roads has barely begun (though there has been more progress in industrial sites such as mines).
Aurora, a market leader, said this month that its manufacturing partner was targeting an annual production run-rate of just 1,000 trucks by the end of this year. Meanwhile, the IRU – which represents transport operators worldwide – said last month there were 2.9 million unfilled truck driver positions across 18 markets and warned that operators were “deeply concerned” by the “worsening driver shortage”.
There are lots of reasons for the shortage of drivers, particularly younger ones: long and antisocial hours, poor roadside facilities, pressure on pay and conditions. But it is possible that anticipation of looming technological obsolescence is worsening the problem.
[ The Irish graduate jobs most affected by AIOpens in new window ]
As Salman writes, these behaviours can lead to a “self-fulfilling prophecy” in which people choose not to enter a profession, leading to labour shortages or higher costs, “thereby intensifying firms’ incentives to automate”.
Might we start to see this “anticipation factor” shaping labour supply in other parts of the economy? There are some signs in the sorts of degrees that young people are choosing.
In the UK the number of applications to study undergraduate computing has dropped in the past two years. Young people may have absorbed the data – tentative though it is – that suggests artificial intelligence (AI) is lowering demand for entry-level software developers.
Nobody knows the future. But in our attempts to anticipate it, we also shape it. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026
