Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Labour force concerns over rise of robots in Asia

Labour force concerns over rise of robots in Asia

Young engineer using a tablet computer to control an automated robot machine in an Asian industrial factory | Zapp2Photo/Shutterstock The old question of whether China would “get old before it becomes rich” is being superseded by an even more pressing calculation.

Will Asian workers become obsolete before they get worthwhile jobs?

Robotics, automation and artificial intelligence are making industrial manufacturing jobs redundant, and with them the classic road map of how a developing economy progresses from peasant agriculture to a self-sustaining, middle class state.The conundrum is an immediate concern in India, which is beginning to embrace manufacturing in the way China […]

High-tech US plants offer jobs even as the laid-off struggle

High-tech US plants offer jobs even as the laid-off struggle

Herbie Mays is 3M proud, and it shows — in the 3M shirt he wears; in the 3M ring he earned after three decades at the company’s plant in suburban Cincinnati; in the way he shows off a card from a 3M supervisor, praising Mays as "a GREAT employee."

But it’s all nostalgia.?

Mays’ last day at 3M was in March. Bent on cutting costs and refocusing its portfolio, the company decided to close the plant that made bandages, knee braces and other health care supplies and move work to its plant in Mexico.At 62, Mays is unemployed and wants to […]

New study finds that minimum wage hikes are great news for robot workers

Back in 2014, I wrote a post that asked, “Why are minimum wage proponents dismissing automation risk?” I just wasn’t getting a sense from the “Fight for 15” crowd that it had thought much about the possibility that dramatically raising the minimum wage might worsen the competitive position of low-skill humans versus machines. Members of the audience cheer as they listen to speakers at a union rally for higher minimum wages in New York, January 4, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson Or maybe it had, but the politics were so tantalizing that they took precedence over sound policy. My conclusion back […]

Raising minimum wage will raise something else: An army of robots taking away folks’ jobs

Raising minimum wage will raise something else: An army of robots taking away folks' jobs

Low-skill workers are under threat either way, it appears

Raising the minimum wage increases the chance employers will automate low-skill jobs away, according to a paper published this week through National Bureau of Economic Research, a non-profit group of econ wonks.

In People Versus Machines: The Impact of Minimum Wages on Automatable Jobs , Grace Lordan, associate professor in health economics at the London School of Economics, and David Neumark, professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine, show that raising the minimum wage may have unintended consequences."Overall, we find that increasing the minimum wage decreases significantly the share […]

Robots Gain from Higher Minimum Wage

Robots Gain from Higher Minimum Wage

America has not yet seen waves of widespread job loss due to automation. The U.S. economy created 209,000 jobs in August to continue its long streak of positive job creation, and the unemployment rate is down to 4.3 percent. Productivity growth remains sluggish , which would not be the case if more efficient machines were replacing droves of workers.

The lack of an aggregate effect on the labor market does not mean automation has not affected the labor market at all.

A new working paper by Grace Lordan of the London School of Economics and David Neumark of the University of […]

New study finds minimum wage hikes lead to job automation

New study finds minimum wage hikes lead to job automation

States that raise their minimum wages may put low-skill workers at risk of having their jobs automated, according to a new academic paper published Monday.

The study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that higher minimum wages are likely to lower employment in manufacturing jobs that can be performed by robots, and hit older, black, and female workers particularly hard. The paper, which has not yet gone through the peer review process, was written by Grace Lordan of the London School of Economics and David Neumark of the University of California at Irvine, one of the pre-eminent […]

But what about the human cost of automation?

But what about the human cost of automation?

New research from recruitment agency Robert Half has outlined the jobs which are under threat from automation, but when are we actually going to talk seriously about the dark side of AI ?

Now we’re not talking about Arnie coming back from the future, blowing up buildings and dropping memorable one-liners, but every step made towards a more efficient AI application is another step for someone towards the dole queue. The replacement of humans by machines is nothing new, but this revolution is one which is seemingly going completely unnoticed by governments around the world.

According to the survey from Robert […]

85% of broker workload ‘immune’ to automation

85% of broker workload ‘immune’ to automation

Just 15 per cent of broker tasks are susceptible to automation, placing brokers on the lower end of the risk spectrum, AlphaBeta has said.

Andrew Charlton, director at the management consulting firm, told The Adviser that 15 per cent of the work brokers currently do is susceptible to automation and that, while automation implies change, “it doesn’t necessarily imply job loss”.

The AlphaBeta report titled The Automation Advantage , released in August, found that machines will "unburden" the average Australian worker of two hours of the “most tedious and manual” tasks a week over the next 15 years.The report, led by […]

A new urban economic agenda: how to localise, socialise, and democratise the economy

A new urban economic agenda: how to localise, socialise, and democratise the economy

There are sensible ways through which we can reorganise the UK economy, argues Neil McInroy . He explains how a new urban economic agenda can be implemented and how it can help build a more socially just future.

All things must pass and the dominant urban economic model of the last few years is starting to creak, and a new progressive agenda is threatening to replace it. At its core is a rejection of liberal economics, a questioning of urban economic policy, and a desire to reorganise our city economies: social justice and environmental sustainability are not just hopes […]

Revolutionise training to cope with work revolution

Revolutionise training to cope with work revolution

START coding next year – that is the ambitious plan the Employees Provident Fund has in reskilling its staff members to prepare them for the rapidly changing work environment.

“Rather than wait for current changes to overtake us, we are retraining them to brace for the impact of technological disruptions on the world of work,” said EPF deputy chief executive officer of strategy division, Tunku Alizakri Alias.

And this will not be EPF’s first proactive measure in navigating the disruptive forces: in 2014, it launched its Retirement Advisory Services (RAS) to help members manage their retirement savings.While this initiative was a […]