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Images of Disappearing Jobs (36 photos)

Over the past couple of months, Agence France-Presse photographers have been finding and photographing people who hold job titles that are becoming very rare, such as lamp lighter, street clerk, rickshaw puller, plowman, or elevator attendant. On May Day, these portraits provide a glimpse of a wide array of jobs that are vanishing under the pressures of automation, inexpensive mass production, and other technological and societal changes. Here are photos from workshops, street stalls, farms, cathedrals, darkrooms, and DVD stores, illustrating how technology has ushered in rapid changes to the services and products available worldwide.