Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Amazon’s Real Agenda Behind Whole Foods Bid

Amazon's Real Agenda Behind Whole Foods Bid

There’s always a fine line between creative disruption and creative destruction. Such is the beastly nature of capitalism.

Amazon.com Inc. ‘s nearly $14 billion bid for Whole Foods is about more than just acquiring a means to sell high-end food products online. It’s about busting the supply chain in an ancient business.

I have no direct knowledge pipeline into Amazon’s strategy for acquiring Whole Foods , which is known for overpriced, organic products. But it’s clear that they want to re-invent the grocery business and create a new business model. There are several positive and negative scenarios. Jeff Bezos, chief […]

This Economic Model Organized Asia for Decades. Now It’s Broken

This Economic Model Organized Asia for Decades. Now It’s Broken

Thirty minutes by car into the scrubby desert outside Korla, in China’s remote Xinjiang region, a textile manufacturer owned by Jinsheng Group is building its latest factory complex. Inside the 16 billion-yuan ($2.4 billion) facility—a collection of stark white warehouses surrounded by an enormous expanse of pristine artificial grass—are rows of huge cotton spools, more than a million bright red and blue spindles, and almost no people. A few German engineers wander around, making sure the equipment runs at peak efficiency. This is the depopulated future of an industry that’s lifted millions of Asians out of poverty.

Jinsheng’s factory covers […]

7 In 10 Millennials Will Eventually Lose Their Jobs To Automation

7 In 10 Millennials Will Eventually Lose Their Jobs To Automation

woman and robot Millennials More Likely To Be Replaced By Automation Than Older Generations

According to new research from Gallup , 67% of millennials are likely to lose their jobs due to automation sometime in the future.

Breaking down the numbers: 37% of millennials have a high risk of losing their jobs, while an additional 30% are at medium risk.This is higher than the employment risk that their parents and grandparents face, as you can see in the chart below.Of course, this should not come as a surprise given that millennials are at the beginning of their working lives, […]

New Research Says Automation May Not Threaten Jobs After All

Contrary to dominant narratives, machines will not be coming for every human’s job anytime soon. In fact, automation may even have a positive effect on unemployment.

In recent years, practically everyone has become familiar with the narrative that automation in the workplace will cost more and more hardworking people their jobs . Indeed, according to a Pew poll , a sizeable majority of Americans are aware of and concerned by automation-based job loss, with 65% of respondents agreeing that robots and/or computers will either “definitely” or “probably” do much of the work currently done by humans in the next […]

One Stat Shows America’s Shift From Manufacturing Cars To Manufacturing Nerds

Todd Fisher hugs an R2-D2 robot near an empty chair for his late sister, actress Carrie Fisher. [Photo: DAVID MCNEW/AFP/Getty Images] The U.S. automobile manufacturing industry has taken a backseat to Silicon Valley, as the top three tech companies had almost the same revenues in 2014 as the Detroit’s Big Three did in 1990, according to a McKinsey Global Institute report.

The American automakers — General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler — needed 1.2 million people to produce revenues of $250 million. In contrast, the biggest corporations in Silicon Valley, the colloquial term for the region and people within the tech […]

Manufacturing jobs in America: They’re not coming back

Manufacturing jobs in America: They're not coming back

Though it’s often cited as an example of declining manufacturing prowess, General Electric, once the most valuable company on the planet, is doing pretty well. The industrial conglomerate earned $8 billion last year on revenue of $124 billion, and its various business units are busy these days on such tasks as upgrading gas turbines at a major energy plant, creating water-quality monitoring systems, and, just a few weeks ago, signing a $5.5 billion contract to develop two power plants.

GE is building things and it’s creating jobs. The problem is, almost none of those jobs are in the U.S. It […]

Should Whole Foods Employees Fear Amazon?

Should Whole Foods Employees Fear Amazon?

Employees at Whole Foods Market have expressed concerns over Amazon’s proposed acquisition of the grocery chain. Whole Foods is known for its inclusive decision making, good pay, and benefits. Grocery store employees expressed their fears to Reuters that Amazon’s profit-driven business model and inclination for automation may result in layoffs.

Bloomberg reports , via an anonymous source, that Amazon plans to implement technology to eliminate cashiers in order to cut costs. An Amazon spokesman disputes that report saying there are “no plans to use no-checkout technology to automate the jobs of cashiers at Whole Foods and no job reductions are […]

Robots are friends, not foes

Robots are friends, not foes

Popular movies like The Terminator have helped instill a certain level of fear that the introduction of robots into everyday life will lead to widespread unemployment and ultimately a planet-wide robot uprising that will spell the end of humanity as we know it.

In recent years, the complexity, range, and quantity of tasks that robots can execute is astounding, and already, different types of robotic automation are taking on new tasks in the workplace – from data entry to customer support. Naturally, there is fear that with the growing number of tasks that can be automated, there will soon be […]

Marching to Dystopia

(photo by helran) It wasn’t that long ago (October 2016) that federal Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau got into trouble when he said that Canadian youth need to “get used to” job churn — the crappy, short-term contract jobs with low pay and no benefits that are the hallmark of the “precariat” future. “We have to accept that,” Morneau pontificated.

Only days later, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was heckled by participants at the Young Workers’ Summit organized by the Canadian Labour Congress in Ottawa. Several young people stood and turned their backs on Trudeau, a sign of their frustration over […]

Robots That Make 400 Burgers an Hour May Soon Take over Fast Food Restaurants

Robots That Make 400 Burgers an Hour May Soon Take over Fast Food Restaurants

Next time you go for a burger, it might not be a high school student that takes your order, rather an AI might ask if you want cheese on your patty. Introducing the BurgerBot. Invented by Momentum Machines , the bot is ready to totally change the way we know burgers.

You don’t need to worry about the line cook messing up your order any more. The BurgerBot is a totally automated burger creating machine! The machine can pump out 400 burgers an hour. But not just any 400 burgers, all the burgers can be made with fresh ground beef, […]