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The oldest and newest professions have emerged. Disappearing professions: names

We have already written about what the world may expect in the next 10-15 years, when self-driving cars become a reality, 3-D printing develops and the cost of solar energy production decreases. And that all this will lead to the fact that 70-80% of current jobs will disappear in the next 20 years.

Of course, these are only forecasts, but they are supported by quite real historical examples. Here are just a few professions that were very popular in the last century and disappeared without a trace thanks to the triumph of the industrial revolution.

Disappeared professions of the last century

1. Coachman

“The horse was, is, and will be, but the car is just a fashionable fad,” so in 1903 the president of the Michigan Savings Bank tried to dissuade lawyer Horace Rackam from investing in Henry Ford's enterprise.

Then the overwhelming majority of the population agreed with him, and certainly the coachmen themselves refused to believe that their profession could disappear almost overnight due to the proliferation of cars, and later - public transport.

Together with the coachmen, coachmen also disappeared - this profession has flourished in Russia since the 17th century. Coachmen were in the public service, lived in special "pit" settlements and received money and gunpowder salaries from the treasury. They delivered mail, government cargo, transported officials and generally played an important role in the country's economy before the spread of rail transport.

2. Kolesnik

The charioteers were also out of work - craftsmen who made wheels, carts and carriages, as well as repairing those that had gone into the past Vehicle. Now only surnames and names of villages remind of this profession.

3. Telephone operator

The invention of automatic telephone exchanges first threatened, and then completely destroyed the profession of a telephone operator.

The representatives of this profession were mostly girls. Telephone operators sat at a special board, switching and connecting telephone lines with each other. The work was quite nervous - according to the standards, only eight seconds were allotted for connection in manual mode, the call could fail. Telephone operators worked manually until the 1980s - this system continued to be used for international calls.

4. Ice Maker

The refrigerator, which appeared in the 40s of the twentieth century, caused the disappearance of another interesting profession- ice maker

It is now impossible to imagine life without a refrigerator, and less than a century ago, food was stored in special cabinets with ice - glaciers (it’s even scary to imagine how people survived in the summer). Procurers cut blocks of ice from frozen lakes and rivers and took them home.

5. Alarm clock man

The alarm clock profession (in English it was called knocker-up, which would be more correctly translated as “a person who wakes up by knocking”) existed in England and Ireland during the industrial revolution. The job of wake-up snitches was to wake up the workers before their shift. In order to reach the windows of the second floors, they used long and light bamboo sticks. "Alarm Clocks" received a few pence a week, and this part-time job was great for women and the elderly who could not work in the factory. The profession went down in history only in the 20s of the last century.

6. Reader at the factory

Another interesting product of the industrial revolution is the reader or lecturer, as he was sometimes called. This is not about education and not scientific reports in lecture halls. The readers entertained the workers right during the production process, since the work in the factories was very dull and monotonous. Often the readers were hired by the workers themselves, collecting money on their own to pay for their work. Usually newspapers or entertaining texts were read to the workers, but at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, agitators began to actively use readers - instead of newspapers, left-wing political manifestos appeared in the hands of lecturers. Of course, the factory owners did not like this, and in the 1920s, readers were replaced by radio in most countries.

But on the Island of Freedom, readers still exist. Last year, the people of Cuba officially celebrated the 150th anniversary of the profession of "reader at the tobacco factory", which, as they say, originated on December 21, 1865. In connection with the round date, the Cuban government even turned to UNESCO with a proposal to include this profession in the World Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

Currently in Cuba, more than 300 people work as professional readers in tobacco factories - all of them are government employees. They devote only 90 minutes a day to reading texts, and the rest of the working day is devoted to preparing materials for the next reading and discussing what they read with the workers.

7. Calculator

Before the invention of the computer, there was a profession of a calculator. The calculators made long and tedious calculations by hand and worked in teams. Each member of the team did his part of the work, so the work in the team went in parallel.

The work of calculators on the "Manhattan Project" (the code name for the US nuclear weapons program) was very important during World War II. It was performed by six female calculators. After the end of the war, calculators worked for NASA on projects related to flight. In the future, the need for this profession disappeared due to the development of computers.

8. Typist

Another popular female profession that has gone into the past with the advent of computers is a typist, that is, a typesetter on a typewriter. Of course, the specialty "computer typesetter" appeared, but the popularity of these professions is incomparable - the copy function has changed the world of text creators.

And since the conversation turned to information carriers, why not recall another profession that has sunk into oblivion - the scribe, which disappeared with the advent of printing. The scribe professionally rewrote books and documents by hand. Historically, scribes managed the affairs of large landowners, kings, kept a chronicle at temples and cities, and also copied various significant texts, including chronicles and scriptures.

9. Lamplighter

Before the invention of electric lamps, large cities were lit by candle or gas lamps, which were lit by lamplighters. They used long ladders to climb the lantern, and set it on fire with matches or oil lamps. Their functions included: lighting and extinguishing lanterns, filling tanks with flammable liquid and repairing lanterns.

The profession partially disappeared with the advent of gas lamps, which were automatically lit at a certain time, without human intervention. The advent of electricity finally put an end to it, but completely new professions appeared - network engineers and electricians.

10 Radar Man

It's hard to imagine, but before the invention of radars, human radars performed their functions manually, using acoustic mirrors and listening devices to detect the sound of the engines of approaching aircraft. In the first half of the last century, the profession was considered very popular. But they had one significant drawback: they picked up frequencies aircraft flying at low speed, and also could not distinguish a military vehicle from a civilian one.

11. Barge haulers


The appearance of steamboats contributed to the disappearance of the profession of barge haulers. Barge haulers were hired workers in Russia of the 16th-early 20th centuries, who, walking along the shore, pulled river boats against the current with the help of a towline. The work was seasonal: boats were pulled in spring and autumn. The work of barge haulers was very hard and monotonous. The speed of movement depended on the strength of the wind.

In the Russian Empire, the city of Rybinsk was called the "capital of barge haulers" from the beginning of the 19th century. During the summer navigation, a quarter of all Russian burlachstvo passed through it.

12. Alloyer

It was not easy for the timber raftsmen either, because they performed the functions of today's trucks, collecting logs and delivering them for processing. Previously, the process of transporting timber looked like this: in winter, cut down trees were piled on the frozen surface of the river, in spring the ice melted and the logs began to float downstream. Strong and strong men walked along the shore with long sticks, guiding logs and removing various obstacles from their path. The profession disappeared at the beginning of the 20th century, with the spread railway and the advent of portable sawmills.

13. Water carrier and water carrier

Before the advent of centralized water supply, water was delivered to homes by water carriers. They collected water from the spring, poured it into containers and carried it or carried it home.

The invention of plumbing did not immediately destroy the profession. In St. Petersburg in the middle of the 19th century, there were 37 water pumps; From them, water carriers carried water in buckets around the city. Because without water, as you know, "not there and not here." Only in the 20th century did this profession finally disappear in Europe.

So

Should we be afraid of the coming total unemployment? For some reason, we don't think so.

Judge for yourself. The eight-hour day was introduced in the 19th century, during the industrial revolution in England - before that, factory workers worked 14-16 hours a day. More than 100 years have passed, technology has developed and workers in all industries have gained the ability to do much more work in a short period of time. It would be logical to expect that this would lead to a shortening of the workday. And the invention of the computer in general should have left half the planet without work.

But this has not happened yet - work, or rather "employment", is becoming more and more, and time is getting less. This means that some other mechanisms are at work here - “general employment” is beneficial to everyone. But this is a completely different conversation.

Not only the crisis and inflation put in place the changes taking place in the labor market, but also the objective course of progress. According to the Australian Economic Development Committee, up to 40% of jobs will disappear in 15 years. In the West, various job positions are expected to disappear. How is the situation in Russia?

1. Secretary

Secretary functions are already successfully replacing organizational programs, intelligent online calendars and applications that send reminders at a specified time. Development of an electronic document management system and digital signatures also help to reduce the need for a number of specialists.

“We studied the change in the structure of the job market in the period 2014-2016, analyzed 29 professional areas. So in the field of administrative personnel, office work, secretaries and call-center employees are stagnating. The least demand is for archivists - 56%, evening secretaries - 52%, the demand for secretaries and administrators has fallen by 41%,” comments Alexandra Pashkova, CourseBurg Russia specialist.

“Some executives have long abandoned the services of personal assistants. While working in a large retail company, I was initially surprised that all top managers have one secretary per floor. But then it became clear that the general secretary can solve those issues that require personal participation and ingenuity. At the same time, all top managers appointed meetings themselves by mail, provided that this did not require the coordination of calendars for a long time. To coordinate calendars, taking into account the load and shifts, a virtual automated assistant is useful. In the future, the professions of a personal assistant and secretary will be filled with other content or combined with the work of a business analyst, project coordinator, content manager, researcher. This is already being observed, just not all secretaries are aware of this, and some are resisting the emergence of new responsibilities. Although this is exactly what you should not do, ”Anna Burova, head of HR consulting at ManpowerGroup Russia & CIS, agrees.

2. Forecaster

Online weather forecast, without human intervention, is already a reality. It is possible that we will soon know about the profession of a weather forecaster only from news releases, where at the end of the program they elegantly read weather reports for the coming days in different parts of the country - again, prepared by special programs.

“According to the latest Yandex research, it is quite realistic that weather forecasters may disappear in Russia in the coming years, since the neural network already makes weather forecasts more accurately than humans,” comments Ivan Mayak, co-founder of Lighthouse Estate.

There will also be fewer HR specialists operating within the framework of traditional ideas about the profession, market experts are sure. The search, evaluation and hiring of personnel are outdated qualifications for the labor market, successfully automated by special programs.

“On the one hand, HR-s do not agree with the idea that their profession will disappear, at the same time they enthusiastically talk about how they have automated the processes of selection, evaluation and even development of personnel. Automation - it's not done for the convenience of HR, it's done to save resources. Therefore, if HR in a company does not make it difficult to find “human” work - mentoring, training, discussion, conversations, and other types of communication that require personal inclusion, then HR runs the risk of being left without a job sooner or later,” Anna Burova is sure.

4. Copywriter

Programs connected to databases generate texts adapted to users of sites and online stores - a given volume, uniqueness, content, and even style. Of course, their level of elaboration of texts is still far from perfect, but the revolution in the world of letters and numbers, according to experts, is not far off.

“With the development of the Internet, a copywriting boom began in the world. Almost every company creates a website to promote goods and services, which needs to be filled with unique content and updated regularly. Meanwhile, even today there are computer programs connected to huge databases with articles of various genres that are able to automatically generate text according to specified parameters. Of course, materials created by robots are unlikely to fall into the category of literary masterpieces, but they will be able to compose an average-quality text on a given topic,” says Svetlana Beloded, head of the QBF HR department.

5. Tourism specialists: visa processing, guides, tour guides

The tourism industry is literally in turmoil right now. More and more people are turning towards online, where they can book tickets and hotels, issue visa documents, and pay for selected services. The fact that travel agents will remain in the elite segment, where an individual approach, a unique route and the issue of free time to prepare for the trip is important, is a reality.

Video tours appear on museum websites, there are a lot of interactive maps any cities equipped with online tours of attractions, museums, and other iconic places.

“People began to travel on their own, consulates switched to electronic questionnaires and document management in particular, therefore, the need for visa specialists decreased by 67%, 60% less need for guides and guides, 53% - for the purchase of air tickets, 50-52% - tourism business management and organization of tourism products. And the farther, the easier it will be to organize trips yourself, without resorting to the help of travel agencies and buying vouchers. The need for specialists will decrease with the development of automated services,” emphasizes Alexandra Pashkova.

“According to Skolkovo specialists, by 2020 the number of guides will be significantly reduced. They will be replaced by audio guides. The clear voice of the sound recording will tell about each museum exhibit, repeat the necessary facts if necessary, and the musical accompaniment will help you immerse yourself in a unique atmosphere. In addition, informational lectures can be easily recorded in different languages, thereby making domestic museums more accessible to people of all nationalities. Audio guides have their drawbacks: communication with a person is more pleasant than contact with headphones. Therefore, guides will not disappear completely, but they will no longer be invited to groups that are determined to get acquainted with the main masterpieces of the Hermitage in an hour,” continues Svetlana Beloded.

While there is a flourishing of ateliers in Russia, tailoring clothes to individual measurements and competitive prices, the need for in-house workers in such workshops may noticeably decrease. But technology will go much further: 3D printing will eventually make it possible to produce clothes and shoes according to given parameters at home.

“The fashion industry is going through significant changes in the foreseeable future. In the next 10-15 years, clothing factories and clothing stores may become a thing of the past. To purchase clothes, it will be enough to go to the site of your favorite brand, download a cartridge with the necessary material and a 3D drawing of the suit or dress you like. The pattern-recipe in the automated studio can be loaded into a special terminal and request your size. Similar developments already exist: designer Hong Chang created a collection of shoes for printing, and Iris Van Erpen actively uses 3D printing in her work on new products. Putting such projects on stream is a matter of time. Sewing ateliers, unlike the factories we are used to, may remain, but they will work only with very wealthy clients,” Svetlana Beloded comments.

7. Insurance agent

The development of technology and online services also has an impact on the insurance market. The demand for a number of specialists has decreased markedly.

“Demand for expert appraisers in the field of insurance decreased by 61%, real estate insurance by 54%, and liability insurance by 52%. Previously, there were many insurance agents, now insurance tasks are solved via the Internet,” comments Alexandra Pashkova.

8. Diagnostic doctor

And this profession is being replaced by technology. The production of microdiagnostic devices that measure individual human indicators at any convenient time, in any conditions is rapidly developing. The data obtained, if necessary, is transmitted to a specific doctor online.

“The equipment that allows diagnosing various diseases is becoming more and more complex and perfect, therefore, the army of doctors serving it is growing. If in 2000, according to Rosstat, there were 86.7 radiologists per 10,000 thousand people, then in 2014 it was already 93.3. However, the specialty of being a diagnostician will soon become obsolete. This is due to the development of microdiagnostic devices. It is assumed that they will appear in every home, as blood pressure monitors appeared in hypertensive patients and glucometers in people with diabetes. Patients will be able to self-diagnose and send device data to attending physicians in real time via the Internet, and specialists will only have to choose a treatment regimen based on them,” emphasizes Svetlana Beloded.

9. Working specialties: packer, elevator operator, loader

In matters of resource extraction, as well as the movement of bulky cargo, cars have long bypassed people. The same applies to all routine processes. In production, the need for loaders and packers will completely disappear in the very near future.

“Among working specialties, the demand for production machinists fell by 46%, 45% - for packers and elevator operators, 36% - for loaders. These specialties are replacing machines,” Alexandra Pashkova comments.

10. Watchman, security guard

Professions related to the observation of order are also a thing of the past. Development of video surveillance technologies, access systems through electronic keys, intercoms and fingerprint scanning or retinal scanning is particularly fast. In fact, even now the task of the guards is reduced to the formal recording of events, which is successfully performed by any video camera or electronic system programmed for security.

“Wachter is one of the most popular jobs for pensioners. The people who give out the keys and keep order day and night used to be in almost every institution. In the early 2000s, they were replaced by professional security guards, and at the dawn of the 2020s, the remaining watchmen may be forced out automated systems. Already, magnetically locked doors and systems capable of retinal and fingerprint recognition are increasingly being used to ensure security. They can distinguish company employees from strangers, register the time of arrival and departure of each employee, therefore, automated systems organically combine the security function with the control function,” confirms Svetlana Beloded.

Of course, the list of possible candidates for extinction is not limited to these 10 professions. According to various estimates, cashiers, accountants, realtors, bank employees and even teachers are at risk. If your profession falls into the list of possible “candidates for departure”, it is worth starting to prepare for changes in life in advance: to form competitive advantages, retrain or focus on the elite segment.

“Disappearing professions arise where modern, first of all, Information Technology create the possibility of performing operations and work in general without the participation of human resources, or radically changing the functionality of the employee. The introduction of advanced management technologies can lead to the disappearance of the middle manager,” concludes the professor of the Higher School corporate governance RANEPA Elena Yakhontova.

More and more professions and occupations are given to robots and machines. Market economy calls for efficiency, so the owners of businesses or shops replace a person with an automaton who does not need to be paid and who is not prone to make mistakes. In fact, this is nothing new - and with the development of technology, some professions simply replace others. Look At Me remembered 12 professions that have disappeared due to the development of technology or will disappear very soon.

6 professions that
have already disappeared

Alarm clock man


Occupation of the alarm clock man (in English it was called knocker-up, so we offer a free translation) existed in England and Ireland during the industrial revolution - and disappeared only in the 20s of the last century. Entrepreneurs hired such people to wake up workers before the shift: the alarm clock man walked around the city in the morning and knocked with a long stick (most often it was made of bamboo) through the windows of the houses. Usually this work was done by older people who received only a few pence a week for it. It is easy to guess what technology has made the profession meaningless: the appearance of an ordinary alarm clock.

Lecturer


We are used to a "lecturer" being a person who teaches at a university or gives public lectures, but at the beginning of the 20th century, this term was used to refer to a strange form of entertainment for workers. Lecturers worked in cigar factories - they were people who read newspapers and other texts aloud to the workers so that they would not be bored. Cigar production was monotonous: day after day, workers manually rolled cigars from tobacco leaves, so the workers needed to be entertained. The profession originated in Cuba, but was most popular in New York. The lecturers preferred left-wing political manifestos and texts on workers' unions. The factory owners did not like this, and in the 1920s lecturers were replaced by radio.

Iceman


Before refrigerators became common in the 1940s, people stored food in glaciers - ice cabinets. They needed ice, which created two jobs that were most often performed by the same worker. Firstly, ice was cut out of frozen lakes and rivers, and secondly, blocks of ice were delivered to their homes several times a week: people hung signs on their houses so that the ice carrier knew exactly how much they needed. Despite the fact that the profession almost disappeared with the advent of refrigerators, ice is still being delivered - for example, to restaurants.

Alloyer


In the 19th century, trees felled by lumberjacks were rafted down rivers to sawmills. In winter, felled trees piled on the frozen surface of the river, in spring the ice melted and the logs began to float downstream. The rafters walked along the shore with long sticks, guiding the logs and removing various obstacles from their path. By the beginning of the 20th century, with the spread of the railway and the advent of portable sawmills, the profession had disappeared, but remained in the popular and mass consciousness: for example, the song “The Log Driver's Waltz” was written about rafters, according to which in 1979 in Canada cartoon was made.

Lamplighter


Before the advent of electric lamps, many large cities were lit by gas lamps, and they had to be lit - and this was done by a special person. Lamplighters used long ladders to climb onto the lantern and then lit the lanterns with matches or an oil lamp. For example, in New York at the beginning of the 20th century, lamplighters lit 200-300 lanterns per hour. The profession did not disappear with the advent of electric lighting, but even earlier: gas companies came up with a mechanism that automatically lit lanterns at a certain time, without the help of people.

telephone operator


When the first commercial telephone line was turned on in the late 19th century, teenage boys were initially hired as operators. But they played pranks and fooled the callers, so the companies began to hire women - and the profession of a telephone operator became female for a long time. Telephone operators sat at a special cord board, switching and connecting different telephone lines to each other. Telephone operators worked this way manually until the 1980s, when this system was used for international calls.

6 jobs that will soon disappear

Cashier at the supermarket


The strongest and fastest robots will hit not factories and production, but retail. Why keep a man behind the counter when everyone can sell vending machines? The first supermarkets without sellers, with only self-service and electronic cash desks, began to appear in the late 2000s - and there are only more of them. For example, in the UK, the first such store appeared in 2009, and now every 6th supermarket in the country hires only 1 person to monitor the work of cashier robots and repair them if necessary.

assembly line worker


However, work at the plant is also under threat. People working on the assembly line are being replaced by machines, because they do everything more efficiently and more accurately. This is best illustrated by the production of semiconductor processors. They are used in almost every electronic device in the world, but modern transistors are so small (100,000 times smaller than a human hair) that a person cannot cope with them - and an automated and finely tuned machine works instead. According to some estimates, in 5 years the number of people working in assembly line production will be reduced by 32%, and about half of them will be in factories producing processors.

Farmer


Many people have the most romantic ideas about agriculture: in order for food to be tasty, people certainly need to grow it, work with the land with their hands, so that everything is their own, “organic”. Unfortunately, technology furnishes people here too. More and more work is done by machines, the industry is ruled by large farms where everything is automated, and the owners of these farms can save on resources - primarily on workers. Although farming is far from extinction, and small private farms supplying food to a small number of buyers will always be popular, in the US alone the number of farmers will decrease by 10% in the next 5 years. (or even 20%).

Travel agent


According to a survey conducted by Tradedoubler back in 2013, 62% of people plan their trip and look for flights on their own, without resorting to the services of travel agents. Travel agencies have no doubt been hit by the rise of the internet, with more and more people using online services to plan their vacations. Why entrust your vacation to someone if you can find cheap flights on the Internet yourself and rent an apartment on Aribnb instead of a hotel? According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2022 the number of travel agents in the US will decline by 12%. Even US President Barack Obama said a few years ago that, in his opinion, the profession of a travel agent has lost its meaning and is outdated.

Postal worker


Work on paper mail suffers for several reasons at once. First, of course, due to the spread Email: In 2012 there were 3 billion e-mail accounts in the world, now there are probably more. Since 2006, the number of paper letters sent has fallen by 500 million. Secondly, the work of the mail itself is automated: for example, such an activity as manual sorting of mail loses its meaning. Some organizations, such as the USPS, are figuring out ways to deliver mail as efficiently as possible and reduce resources: in some US cities, for example, entire neighborhoods share mailboxes so that mail carriers do not have to travel to many houses at once.

Video rental employee


A simple but iconic 20th-century profession: a video rental worker, a person who rented videocassettes, and later DVDs, and who, according to pop culture, must have had an extensive knowledge of cinema. Quentin Tarantino worked in a video store before becoming a director. This profession has been praised in many pop culture works, such as the movie Clerks or the animated series The Simpsons. Now, of course, it is clear that this profession will soon completely lose its relevance: no one has been renting cassettes and discs for a long time, but downloading and streaming films on their computer. A few years ago, America's largest rental chain, Blockbuster, closed down, but some experts believe that the agony of video rentals will continue for a long time - and they will disappear slowly.

Which specialties have already gone down in history forever, which ones are on the verge of extinction, and which ones are just emerging - this article is about that.

Why are some professions disappearing?

In the 21st century, society is developing rapidly. At the same time, the appearance of settlements is changing, new cities are emerging and existing cities are growing rapidly, a modern way of life is being born. In huge production workshops, human labor has been replaced by automatic robots, some activities have been transformed beyond recognition compared to past centuries and even past decades, others completely go into oblivion. In this regard, the concept of "disappearing professions" appeared. We will describe them in detail below.

Along with the changing reality, many profession names go down in history. Some simply transform their name into another designation, but there are also those that completely cease to exist. You can no longer meet their representatives on the street, information can be found in historical archives, and you can see it only in a movie or a theatrical production.

Professions that do not exist

Disappearing professions cease to be relevant. Due to the rapid development of science and technological process Some professions are out of demand. Machines are replacing human hands and doing almost all crafts much faster and more efficiently. Automation of many processes significantly reduces the cost of production and at the same time increases the productivity of any process. Serious negative consequences of this are the loss of jobs, the growth of unemployment, as a result - the impoverishment of the population and an increase in the world. Therefore, today the state is making a lot of efforts so that everyone can master a profession that is relevant to today's reality. It is important for everyone to learn and gain skills in the areas that humanity needs.

Excursion to the past

Let's remember the old professions that have lost their popularity and remained only on the pages of history. The names of some of them are known, others sound alien and completely unfamiliar.

TOP professions that ceased to exist:

  • Daguerreotypists. They created the first portrait photographs. Then there were no cameras, but there were silver plates on which the very first pictures were taken. They were replaced by photographers who clicked on film. But this is a completely different type of work, therefore, we can safely say that daguerreotypists have already become part of history.
  • Chimney sweeps. They regularly went out in search of dirty chimneys. Not a single family could do without their efforts and work. The modern generation knows about this specialty only thanks to the myths and fairy tales that have survived to this day. Chimney sweeps were held in high esteem, as chimneys and fireplaces prevented fires.
  • Pied Piper. Surely many have not heard such names of professions. But in fact it was a very important and dangerous position, these people could be compared to superheroes. They saved entire cities from the invasion of rodents, which were real carriers of dirt and disease. It was the rats that brought the plague that wiped out half of Europe in the 16th century. Today, in many countries, they strictly monitor the order, preventing the spread of sewage and garbage. If necessary, regularly clean public areas using strong poisons and other pest control products. In the past, tens of thousands of rats were killed by hand.

List continued

  • Stonebreakers. Hard labor during which people died. Workers around the clock crushed rocks used for construction. Now the extraction of stone is carried out by specialized equipment, controlled by a person.
  • Lamplighters. Every evening they went to work with long sticks, lit street lamps and kept the lights on in the city. Of course, it is hard to imagine that once there was no electricity.
  • Telephone operators. They were quite recently, but today, in the "world of the mobile phone", such old professions have ceased to exist. And once, in order to hear the desired subscriber, it was necessary to contact the telephone operator, who redirected the signal to the desired point.
  • typists. Women in all printing establishments typed texts for hours, pounding like a machine gun on the keys of a typewriter. It is hard to imagine that today someone is working on this outdated machine.
  • Counters. At the workplace of these women there were only abacuses and paper with a pen for notes. In every company, an accountant had such a lady in her subordination, who knew how to knock out numbers on bone accounts in seconds. After all, a few decades ago there was no calculator, and complex calculations were made precisely on the accounts. Only women were accepted for work, as they approached it more responsibly and were distinguished by special perseverance.
  • Coachman- driver, drove a horse-drawn carriage. But with the advent of the automobile, people stopped moving around in wheelchairs and chaises, which is why there was no need for this specialty.
  • Profession shoe shiner was once in great demand. Dirty shoes are bad form, so all high-ranking and simply neat men regularly stood at the chairs, around which young boys with brushes and shoe polish were spinning.

Little-known disappeared professions

The list of disappeared professions includes those that are well known to many. And there were also little-known ones: buoyers, booths, coopers, komashniks.

In the 15th-18th centuries, the position of a kisser was widespread. These people mainly monitored the replenishment of the treasury, the payment of per capita and dues by peasants (why not the tax inspectorate?), Participated in lawsuits and police supervision. Upon taking office, they took an oath of honesty and kissed the cross.

In construction, they could not do without diggers, embankments, carriers and slabs. Today, their work is performed by excavators, cranes and other equipment.

There were many other specialties, without which it was difficult to imagine society in the past.

Professions that are disappearing

Specialists regularly keep records of those that are on the verge of extinction. Disappearing professions are known to everyone today. The super-fast progress of technology and the development of the Internet are creating new jobs, but at the same time we have to say goodbye to the usual crafts.

Here are examples of professions that will cease to exist in the near future. These However, as a consolation to many, we can say that the old ones are being replaced by new classes, the list of which is constantly updated.

Disappearing professions:

  • packer. Businesses will no longer need manual packaging, people will soon be replaced by robots. Cars don't require days off, they don't need sick days, and they don't argue with their superiors. Already many firms and factories are switching to full automation of production.
  • Conductor. Modern public transport is equipped with a turnstile. It is installed in front of the entrance. To use the bus, you must insert a card or lower the desired banknote. It turns out that there is no need for a person who catches "hares" and sells travel tickets.
  • Postman, cashier.
  • Librarian.
  • Journalist. They will be replaced by numerous copywriters.
  • Call center operator.
  • Watchman, concierge, elevator operator, waiter.
  • Logistician.
  • Miner.
  • Seamstress, weaver, potter.
  • Accountant, economist.
  • Architect.

Reducing the list of village artisans

Many rural professions are disappearing. There are fewer mowers, laborers in the fields, fruit pickers, blacksmiths and shepherds. Their work is performed by combines, cultivators, garden equipment. There are practically no horses on the farms, so there is no work for blacksmiths. And cows are increasingly seen only on large farms, so the shepherds are disappearing. The process of reducing rural processes is especially pronounced in the economically developed capitalist countries, while in the developing countries manual labor in the fields is still in demand.

Simple and understandable specialties are closely intertwined with the world of high-tech technologies. Science and electronics are rapidly gaining momentum, and many countries simply do not keep up with the progress. Perhaps that is why in some parts of our country there are professions that have long gone down in history in Europe.

One of the consequences of the collapse of the USSR

Separately, it is worth noting the professions of the USSR, which ceased to exist with the collapse of the country.

Everyone was studying and striving to take their place in the nomenklatura of the party. Even the most outstanding instructor of the district committee of the CPSU sounded proud and respectable. Not to mention the secretaries of the district committee and others. The pioneer leaders, who guided the pioneers on the right path and organized their leisure time, also went nowhere. Many professions in the USSR disappeared at the same time as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics itself.

Indirect consequences of the disappearance of many professions

Even 50 years ago, the career had a linear character, it was adjusted and stable. In his youth, a person chose a profession to his liking, received an appropriate education, and throughout his life was engaged in one thing. Today the picture is quite different. In the age of super-fast technology, this model no longer works. A person has to study all his life, mastering new, as a rule, narrow specialties.

High competition, fear of unemployment and constant mental stress - all this negatively affects a person's health, his psyche, giving rise to neurosis, depression and mental disorders. As a result of constant employment, not enough attention is paid to the family, children, simple human ties are lost. This, in turn, gives rise to children's crime, which very quickly develops into "adult".

One of the consequences of the rapidly changing reality and the disappearance of many professions is an increase in unemployment, impoverishment of the population, a drop in the birth rate, which in a chain reaction also gives rise to social tension.

This is such a "black" relationship built by the New York analytical agency.

Professions of the future

Dying professions will be replaced by new ones that meet modern realities. Every year, leading educational institutions are certified in order to obtain permission to teach new crafts. And they are connected directly with robots, nanotechnologies and computers.

Here is a list of specialties that are likely to be needed in the future:

  • cyberjanitor- will put things in order on the Internet.
  • city ​​caretaker- Responsible for landscaping the city.
  • master printer- 3D printing specialist.
  • Personal chronicler- will establish all your roots and create a family chronicle.
  • Microflora specialist.
  • Drone operator.

Today, these are just theoretical conclusions. But once the astronaut was considered a fantastic profession.


By studying the lists of professions in demand in a particular period of human history, you can learn a lot about society: people's preferences, technical equipment, it is even possible to draw conclusions about the sanitary condition of cities. Certain specialties arise in the wake of the demands of their time, but then just as quickly disappear. In this review, a story about some professions, the memory of which is now only in photographs.

time seller

Before the beginning of the era of radio, when exact time signals were not yet transmitted on the air, accurate clock reconciliation was very relevant. This was done by the time sellers. The last representative of this profession was Ruth Belleville. Every morning she set the chronograph to the Greenwich Observatory's clock and then toured customers who signed up for the service. Thus, people were able to synchronize their clocks with Greenwich Mean Time. The error in this case was no more than 10 seconds. This profession was popular in the XIX century. With the advent of radio that transmitted accurate time signals (this first happened in 1926), many customers, of course, stopped paying for such a service. However, Ruth worked until 1940.

alarm clock

The activity of this person was also associated with the exact time. He had to wake up his client on order. They did this either by knocking on the window (long sticks and pebbles were used), or with the help of special pipes. Such professionals were widespread in England and Ireland. In Russia, by the way, the janitors woke up the tenants.



Pied Piper

People of this profession performed a very important job, ridding the city of harmful rodents. This activity differed radically from modern pest baiting: rat catchers climbed basements and sewers, catching rats by hand. Of course, this required special skill. It is interesting that these same "professionals" were sometimes engaged in breeding and selling tame rats, and also supplied live rodents for the fun that was popular in those days - dog baiting. In 1835, in England, the use of bears and bulls for such purposes was banned, and bloody entertainment began to be carried out with rats.




Many professions disappeared literally within the lifetime of one generation of people. Even our parents could see them.

Shoe shiner

The correct name for this profession is Bootbreaker. It appeared in the 18th century. The cleaner boys have become a real "sign of the times", because. This simple work was done mainly by children. Such a service was popular until the middle of the 20th century, and then gradually disappeared in Europe and America, but continues to flourish in Asia and Latin America. Therefore, it is too early to formally call it a “dead profession”. In India, there is even a trade union for shoe cleaners and a special license for this type of activity.


Outdoor knife grinder

Interestingly, people of this profession have been known since antiquity. Craftsmen-grinders had small workshops or went to towns and villages in search of customers. In those days, when life and well-being often depended on edged weapons, such a narrow specialization justified itself. In the 20th century, street knife sharpeners were still very common. Their professional tool was most often a foot-operated whetstone. Now these no longer exist, although this profession is called sharpener in production is a completely official and demanded working specialty.



Stenographer

The disappearance of this specialty can be compared to the explosion of a huge multi-storey building. A skill honed over thousands of years has ceased to be in demand in just a few decades. Technological progress in this case was ruthless.

If we recall the history of this profession, then its beginning is attributed to Ancient Egypt, where the speeches of the pharaohs were recorded with conventional signs. In the 1st century BC, the first system of signs used for cursive writing was invented. Since the end of the 16th century, shorthand has been rapidly developing and becoming a full-fledged professional institute with their educational institutions, specialized printed publications, regularly held international congresses.

In our country, in 2018, this profession seems to have ended its existence. From April 1, the positions of "Secretary-Stenographer", "Stenographer" and "Head of the Typewriting Bureau" are excluded from Qualification Handbook positions of managers, specialists and other employees.



It is clear that the disappearance of some professions and the emergence of others is a natural process, and it will continue along with the history of mankind. There are predictions about which professions will be next in demand. Most likely, in the coming decades, specialties will disappear:

Travel Agent – ​​Many people are already planning their trips themselves.
- The cashier in the supermarket - will be replaced by a "smart cart", such concepts already exist.
- Call-center operator - automatic systems with recorded voice information are still doing their job well today.
- Ticketer - reading scanners can replace a living person in this case.
- Postman - this profession should have disappeared a couple of years ago with the advent of e-mail, but it turned out to be unexpectedly tenacious. In any case, the work of the postal service will have to change a lot in the near future.
- Chauffeur - autopilots for cars and buses are already being actively used in big cities.

Whether these predictions will come true - we will find out in a couple of decades.

If you want to dive into the past, it's worth seeing.