Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Esquel – From making shirts to making a difference

Esquel – From making shirts to making a difference

An automatic needle inspection machine in operation at Esquel Hong Kong-based textile and apparel giant Esquel Group has made it its mission to weave sustainability into its core values, and across a vertical supply chain that spans every step from cotton farming to retail. Using fewer but more skilled workers, increasing productivity, investing in robotics and automation, micro-financing cotton farmers, and even selecting the whitest cotton fibres to reduce the bleaching process are among the initiatives outlined by managing director Edgar Tung.

"As an industry we have a bad reputation when it comes to sustainability," says Edgar Tung, managing […]

More than a third of Welsh workers said they would be happy to have a robot boss

More than a third of Welsh workers said they would be happy to have a robot boss

Credit: Nick Ansell/PA Archive/PA Images A new survey has revealed that Welsh workers are the most likely in the UK to be willing to work for a robot boss.

The FreeAgent survey, of 1,000 working British people, found that Welsh workers were the most likely in the UK to be open to working for a robot, with 38% admitting that they would work for one compared to 31% of British workers. Although it might be many years before we see physical robots taking over the workforce, many Welsh workers are already anticipating the changes that automation will bring in the […]

Retail job cuts now the highest since records began

Retail job cuts now the highest since records began

Retail careers work_generic_employment_ST Retail job cuts have hit their highest rate since records began nearly a decade ago thanks in part to automation and wage increases.

According to the British Retail Consortium (BRC) retailers employed three per cent less staff year-on-year in the last quarter, while the average number of hours worked dropped 4.2 per cent, both measures representing the sharpest decline since the height of the last financial crisis in 2008.

Retail’s employment figures are made all the more significant when compared with the wider economy, which has seen unemployment fall to the lowest point in 40 years.Just yesterday fast […]

The rising importance of intelligent automation

The rising importance of intelligent automation

The notion of a dystopian future where we witness ‘the rise of the robots’ has become part of our world culture. It’s a natural enough reaction for humans to worry about sentient cyborgs and self-aware systems, but popular culture has a tendency to amplify extremes, while engineering realities are actually rather more down to earth.

Our CEO John Donahoe has spoken openly about the common assumption that it’s going to be people or robots, all or nothing. Actually what we find in the real world is that it doesn’t work that way at all. John has emphatically talked about how […]

Bots just getting smarter

Bots just getting smarter

Delegates during the Digitrans 2017 forum organised by Khaleej Times and MITSloan Management Review GCC in Dubai on Wednesday. Many of us today have had the opportunity to interact with a speech bot. Whether it’s about checking up on our bank accounts, or resolving an issue with our IT provider, it is not uncommon to be directed to an automated voice on the other end of the telephone.

Depending on how ‘intelligent’ the bot is, we either walk away from the interaction happy that our problem has been quickly and efficiently resolved, or frustrated about being led around in circles. […]

Should robots be nationalised?

Should robots be nationalised?

What robotisation can offer to the future of work in India As we ask ourselves how employment is threatened by technology, we should look at how labour has changed in recent decades. Before we get so attached to the current job market, and feel we must defend it from an eventual robot takeover, we should examine how unfair the labour system has become and how robotics could contribute to change that.

If properly managed, the robotic revolution could be a chance to free millions of people from a system of exploitation of labour which is unprecedentedly inhumane. Or not.

In ancient […]

What areas of jobs lost to automation are happening the most right now?

What areas of jobs lost to automation are happening the most right now?

One trend to watch is the continued loss of call center jobs. While at lot of these jobs have already fled to nations in Asia, the bleeding hasn’t stopped. And it’s going to get worse.

Apps, chatbots, and straight-up digital employees are going to decimate this industry, especially in the lower tiered positions occupied by the most economically vulnerable in those Asian nations.

But it’s going to cut deeper, because the automation isn’t only going to affect front-facing positions (where it’s already chipping away several % per year as systems and customers solve problems themselves).The programs that operators use to help […]

Economic Growth Is No Longer Enough

Economic Growth Is No Longer Enough

As new technologies subject the world’s economies to massive structural change, wages are no longer playing the central redistributive role they once did. Unless the decoupling of productivity and wages is addressed, the political convulsions many countries are experiencing will only intensify.

MADRID – Macroeconomic data from the world’s advanced economies can be mystifying when viewed in isolation. But when analyzed collectively, the data reveal a troubling truth: without changes to how wealth is generated and distributed, the political convulsions that have swept the world in recent years will only intensify. Consider, for example, wages and employment. In the United […]

Alan Mak: The Fourth Industrial Revolution 3) We must prepare workers for the changes that are coming

Alan Mak: The Fourth Industrial Revolution 3) We must prepare workers for the changes that are coming

Alan Mak is MP for Havant and Founding Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This is the third article in a five-piece series on how the Conservatives must seize the opportunities presented by new technologies transforming our economy and society.

Futurists, like Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elon Musk, regularly talk about the risk that artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics will trigger a mass wave of automation, causing unemployment as machines replace people. The PayPal founder predicts that in the future there will be “fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better [than a […]

Why the explosive growth of e-commerce could mean more jobs

PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER
AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) – When the robots came to online retailer Boxed, dread came, too: The familiar fear that the machines would take over, leaving a trail of unemployed humans in their wake.“I had a lot of people asking me, `What is going to happen to us?”’ says Veronica Mena, a trainer for the e-commerce startup, recalling the anxiety that rippled through her co-workers after company executives announced plans to open an automated warehouse in nearby Union, New Jersey.Yet their fears didn’t come to pass.When the new warehouse opened this spring, […]