In the end, only jobs that require human creativity (art, writing, cooking, design, etc.) will remain; all products will be manufactured by overseas prison labor or domestic machinery. The prices for goods will drop dramatically -- but without jobs and income, who will buy them? What???
Who is going to design and build these hi-tech robots? Who is going to build the computer systems to run them?
Yes, labor costs trend downward for a simple reason - it doesn't make any sense to pay someone $20 an hour to operate a screwdriver. Instead take that same "skilled" worker and have them perform "skilled work" (see above robots).
Regards,
I've already answered your question: creative jobs (including design and programming) will be most resistant to automation, but these jobs will be limited both by demand (only so many designers will be needed) and supply (most people do not have the ability to design automated production systems). Therefore, only a few such jobs (relative to the population as a whole) will exist. As for repair: Machnes generally need repair only as a result of bad engineering (kludges, needlessly complex systems, legacy holdovers in design), physical damage (environmental damage, misusem sabotage, disasters) or poor workmanship (human error). As technology advances, the design of these automated factory robots will advance, eliminating kludgy single-function designs in favor of all-purpose "assemblers" with modular, swap-out subsystems. Once machines are building machines, poor workmanship will cease to be a factor; and, since these modular assemblers will work 24-hour, 7-day weeks in sealed, climate controlled environments, moisture and heat conditions can be tailored to fit the optimum for the machines, instead of the comfort and convenience of human operators, reducing the possibility of enivironmental damage to the assemblers. With no people in the production loop, factories will become sealed units: recycled raw material feedstocks will be introduced at one end, finished goods will emerge from the other. With the possibility of human damage from misuse and sabotage reduced to zero, these "magic mills" could eliminate the entire concept of factory labor in capital-rich markets; the only "jobs" created would be high-end design and programming jobs (such repairs as would be needed could be handled by low-wage, unskilled labor; the assemblers would shut down long enough for a human or robot to enter the mill, swap out the malfunctioning module, and leave). In capital-poor markets, these "magic mills" would be replaced by sweatshops, with no-wahe prison labor substituting for the assembler robots.
Given the way technology and markets are progressing, I honestly cannot imagine what the world economy will be like in fifty years' time. Since machines can manufacture finished goods better, faster, and more cheaply than can any human workforce (except for slave labor), and since there are only so many high-end, automation-proof "creative" jobs to go around, I simply cannot imagine what the Average Joe is going to do for a living in the year 2052. Maybe the problem isn't the march of progress; perhaps it's my limited imagination.
In any case, thank God I'm a professional artist. There are some things only a human being can do.