Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

The Crisis of World Automation

The Crisis of World Automation

Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017

“Money is an amazing, device without which modern civilization could not function but its introduction and development as a debt-credit accountancy system in the context of an increasingly labor-displacing, intensive capital producing system, involves a number of fundamental issues of which we must become aware of and for which we must compensate through a new economic orthodoxy. Keynesianism is dead. Let us actively bury it and move on, rather than let the corpse rot and its disease destroy the natural creative resourcefulness of nations”.

Wallace Klink, Social Credit Archivist. Senior fellow […]

Manufacturing Adds 16,000 Jobs in July

Manufacturing Adds 16,000 Jobs in July

Senior Editor US manufacturing added 16,000 jobs last month, with makers of durable goods doing the heavy lifting.

The durable goods sector added 13,000 jobs while makers of non-durable goods boosted employment by 3000, according to a breakdown by industry issued today by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Notable job gainers included fabricated metal products (up 5000 jobs), transportation equipment (3800) and machinery (2100).Within transportation equipment, motorized vehicles and parts added 1600 jobs. That sector had lost 1300 jobs in June.The auto industry is seeing US sales soften following a record 2016 with 17.55 million deliveries of cars and light […]

‘Crisis of Control’: AI Risks Could Lead to Utopia or Destruction

‘Crisis of Control’: AI Risks Could Lead to Utopia or Destruction

An illustration projected on a screen shows a robot hand and a human one moving towards each others during the ‘AI for Good’ Global Summit at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland, June 7, 2017. (Reuters) Hardly a day goes by without news about a breakthrough in machine intelligence or some debate about its pros and cons, more recently between Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla Motors’ Elon Musk . Adding his voice to the mix, author and IT specialist Peter Scott warns that rapid AI growth comes with serious risks that, if mitigated, could take humanity to […]

The pill-popping future of work looks terrifying

The pill-popping future of work looks terrifying

In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, a dystopia rules mankind in a way that renders the masses compliant consumers. The apex of medical mind control in the book is soma: a tranquilliser offering ‘a holiday from reality’. Huxley describes how its users’ ‘eyes shone (and)…the inner light of universal benevolence broke out on every face in happy, friendly smiles’.

Huxley’s vision was intended as a nightmare but PricewaterhouseCoopers appear to have taken it as an inspiration. Their new report, Workforce of the Future , predicts what the labour market could look like in 2030. As you might expect, automation takes […]

Where Stephen Miller Gets Immigration and American Jobs So Wrong

Where Stephen Miller Gets Immigration and American Jobs So Wrong

This article first appeared on the Council on Foreign Relations site.

In his successful election campaign last year, Donald Trump tapped into a genuine and serious set of concerns among many Americans about the impacts of both trade and immigration on their economic well-being.

The faith among policymakers in Washington—that relatively open trade and immigration were an unmitigated good for Americans—required turning a blind eye to economic research and real world evidence that showed that both create winners and losers in the American economy.And Donald Trump promised to stand up for the losers.One of the great frustrations of the first […]

Jobs supporting middle-class living will lag others over next 5 years

Jobs supporting middle-class living will lag others over next 5 years

New data from Careerbuilder.com suggests low-wage jobs will grow faster than ‘middle-wage’ and ‘high-wage’ jobs over the next five years. USA TODAY

Low-wage jobs are expected to grow the fastest over the next five years while occupations that support a middle-class living will lag, according to a new CareerBuillder survey.

Technology and globalization will continue to reshape the labor market, paring some middle-wage factory and office jobs in particular.All told, low-wage jobs are projected to increase by 3 million, or 5.57%, through 2022. High-wage jobs will increase by 2.7 million, or 5.1%, and middle-wage payrolls will grow by 2.2 million, or […]

After Work: Automation and Employment Law, Part Three

After Work: Automation and Employment Law, Part Three

Cynthia Estlund is the Catherine A. Rein Professor at the New York University School of Law, and a longtime teacher and scholar of labor and employment law. This post is the final installment in a three-part series. Read the first two parts here and here .

Automation and Work: A Path Forward in the Face of Uncertainty

For over a century, workers and their organizations have struggled to raise labor standards and expand employee rights and benefits. Whatever the benefits to workers and the society, to any one private firm those laws represent a tax on employing human […]

Are we getting too much of the wrong kind of innovation?

One of the complexities when thinking about innovation, technological progress, productivity, and jobs is that each of those factors isn’t just one thing. For instance, Clayton Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School, has differentiated between three different sorts of innovation. Christensen : The first are “empowering” innovations. These transform complicated, costly products that previously had been available only to a few people, into simpler, cheaper products available to many. The second type are “sustaining” innovations. These replace old products with new. … The third type are “efficiency” innovations. These reduce the cost of making and distributing existing products […]

Robots Making Humans More Efficient, Opening Up New Jobs

Robots Making Humans More Efficient, Opening Up New Jobs

SAM, the Semi-Automated Mason, can be seen on YouTube laying bricks alongside human masons. While SAM can, according to contractors, lay around 2,000 bricks a day compared to an average of 600 to 700 for a human mason, the video illustrates a key point missed by many: It shows human workers programmming SAM and providing it the bricks and mud and following behind cleaning up after it. In other words, SAM, produced by Construction Robotics, isn’t replacing masons, it is making them more efficient and saving their backs.

A year ago, Rick Cohen, the founder of Symbotic LLC, which develops […]

Workplace Loyalty: A New Paradigm

Workplace Loyalty: A New Paradigm

Once there was a time when companies provided their employees with the security of lifetime employment. There was also a time when employees remained on the job despite opportunities to go elsewhere.

That relational dynamic has certainly changed as many employers moved towards outsourcing, automation, and—for all too many—a focus on increasing shareholder value over employee engagement and customer satisfaction. Many employers are no longer loyal to their workforce so it should come as little surprise that employees are not loyal to their companies.

Maybe it’s time for a new paradigm with regard to workplace loyalty. This is one where both […]