"For most of us, without work, there is no money. When job losses occur at scale, the resulting waves of unemployment can have very damaging impacts on working people and their communities. When the pit closures unfolded in the UK, unemployment and a sense of loss, disorientation, and hopelessness followed, as former mining regions entered some of their bleakest years. Into the 1990s, warehouse work was one of a limited range of employment opportunities available in these former coal towns. It was then still very 'analogue'; computers were present in the offices, but 'consignments' were typically accompanied by a paper sheet that had to be carried across the warehouse floor, read manually, and its contents re-typed into the computers by clerks. I know well how the system worked, because for a brief period about 30 years ago that was my job (in a distribution warehouse, in a former mining area). The work has changed significantly now though, and in modern distribution centres and warehouses consignments are scanned by handheld devices carried by drivers. The scanned data is uploaded directly into networked computer systems. The old paper-based clerical job has been more or less automated out of existence..."

Support: Digital