No humans need apply

It seems we have some good news and some bad news.

Government spokesmen aver that the high rate of unemployment is bottoming out and that very soon employment will be on the rise again. This is the good news.

The bad news is, the new jobs will go to robots.

So far, Japan has put over 10,000 robots to work. They have what they call full robot employment. It is true that some of the older robots are out of work, but things are looking up for the young, second generation robot. Up until now, the older generation were nothing more than a series of ball and socket joints screwed to the floor that turned out quotas of ball and socket joints.

Not so the new robots. These will come with senses of sight and hearing. They will even have a sense of touch, which implies a judgment as to the quality of their work, whether it be good or bad.

Also, they seem to be fast eliminating the old harangue about equal employment for women. In the case of most robots, sex discrimination engenders little controversy.

Things are getting tougher for unions, too. None of the new robots has joined up. They all seem to be right-to-work hardheads.

We have seen the movie ''E.T.'' He is not a member of a union. He isn't even a citizen, which raises the additional question: is he an undocumented alien robot taking a job away from an American robot?

Complications seem endless. Computer-robots are already working in government employment offices, which could tilt new jobs away from normal people. Even the term ''normal people'' is becoming subject to criticism in factories where the number of employed robots exceed the number of people.

Without going too deeply into the ethics of deception, there is one other solution to the people unemployment problem being evidence. Many those looking for work have been attaching levers and buttons to themselves when applying for a job, with remarkable success.