Self-driving cars will destroy a lot of jobs—they’ll also create a lot

Enlarge / A technician inspects a Waymo vehicle. (credit: Waymo)

Many people worry that the development of self-driving technology will put taxi drivers and truck drivers out of work. What often gets missed is that self-driving technology companies are going to create plenty of jobs, too.

Most obviously, high-end jobs will spring up for engineers designing the necessary hardware and software. But there are also going to be jobs for workers further down the income spectrum, doing things like taking customer calls, cleaning and repairing cars, and updating the high-definition maps that cars use to move around.

Take Waymo, for example. The Google spinoff plans to launch a driverless taxi service in the Phoenix area before the end of the year. On Tuesday, the company offered a look inside its operations center in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler.

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