Imagine you are travelling, and you go online to book your ticket, through a travel app.

Then when you go to the airport, you check in at a kiosk and print your boarding pass and checked bag label and drop it at a station with one person who scans your boarding pass and your luggage label, when you drop your bag.

You then go to the Uber app and order a car, which already knows your destination.  The app alerts you that the car will arrive at your location (picked up automatically) in two minutes. 

When you get to the hotel, you self-check at a machine, using your reservation code, make your own key and pay with a credit card. If you need to store your luggage before going up to the room, then a robot takes it and stores it for you. 

When you go to the room, you order a meal or anything you need from the TV menu, or snacks you can get at a confectionary machine. 

You go out to the store and self-checkout at a machine, and if you need a cart, you make a deposit and are able to take one, which you can take out to your car (after self-checkout) and return to get back your deposit.

In the same city, if someone needs a job, they can go to an app and offer their service to walk dogs (can earn up to US$100 per day, our weekly minimum wage.  And as my son says, in New York City, all you need to get an income and live is a smartphone and internet connection.

All of this happens without any human interaction, and happens efficiently, with no mistakes made and in a timely manner. 

This is reality, and is happening in many countries that Jamaica competes with. The fact is that jobs that are based on tasks with minimal discretion have been replaced with robots and AI long ago and what is happening now is that AI is now taking over jobs that require some discretion also.

For example, AI can now write a project for you with just a voice command. 

This is happening globally while here in Jamaica, we just concluded a Budget Debate, where Nigel Clarke started it by focusing correctly on the need for productivity improvement, and then the debates thereafter descended into a “beauty contest” about who can give more to Jamaicans.

So we make much about giving more money by increasing the income tax threshold, about how much money is given to PATH, and giving away money through grants. Not realizing that without addressing the productivity comparisons to other countries, our exchange rate will continue to deteriorate and inflation will soon overtake the monetary giveaways that people get. 

We also don’t realize that we hold back productivity with poor road conditions, poor public transportation, and the lack of law and order. We also failed, since the 2013 IMF agreement to address the important factor of labour market reform, and then we wonder why people are on short-term contracts without health and pension benefits (at least Nigel Clarke is starting to address this wrong).

And then people expect that their lives will improve when unlike in other countries, the student who leaves school doesn’t have to worry about car payments, because a good transportation system means a car is not necessary, and more efficient than private cars. And parents don’t have to worry about their children having to commute to and from school because they have a reliable school bus system.

In the ‘Big Apple’, they have just implemented a congestion tax for persons wishing to drive into Manhattan between certain times, because they realise the strain on productivity from traffic congestion. This is coming out of a country that produces oil. While in Jamaica’s case, a country that imports oil and has all-year sunshine, we are not trying to discourage traffic or push more aggressively to encourage faster renewable energy adoption.

In Jamaica, we are also still clamouring to provide low-value and task-driven jobs, which other countries are replacing with robots and AI. 

The implication for me is that Jamaicans will no doubt get poorer because while we are celebrating who can give away more, other countries, which we compete with are moving persons to higher value and higher paying jobs. They are putting infrastructure in place that will aid in the citizen becoming more productive and giving them the opportunity to create their own employment easily. 

Imagine again how our productivity, and disposable income would increase, if we had good public transportation, an orderly and low-crime society, good and free Wi-Fi infrastructure and efficient ways of getting Government services. 

Imagine also how our competitiveness and businesses would grow exponentially, were it easier to start a business, fail and start another one, as in the US, unlike in Jamaica where our processes and focus discourage persons from trying because of the cost of failure (a natural part of business growth) is too expensive. 

But the truth is that we have shown that that is not our priority, and we are satisfied with just getting scraps. 

The real reason for this is not politicians, but that some among us are happy with low standards of living; people seem happier with a politician who gives them a fish rather than teaches them to fish. 

So in the example I started with, Jamaica still has a lot of people interaction at airports, hotels, and stores. That means of course being less efficient and using our human capital in an inferior way to other countries. That means that people are focused a lot on task-oriented jobs instead of higher-value jobs. This translates into a weaker currency than other countries, and therefore a lower per capita GDP and standard of living for Jamaicans, as instead of eating at the table we are waiting on food to fall off so that we can eat. 

The Government has been making moves to address some of the productivity issues, such as long-neglected capital infrastructure and removing legislative inhibitors. But we are so far behind and so resistant to doing what is necessary for much-improved productivity that the relative productivity crisis will only worsen.