Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

The Robot Takeover Is Greatly Exaggerated

The Robot Takeover Is Greatly Exaggerated

There’s lots of fretting these days that automation will displace huge numbers of workers. It makes sense to be worried. Although adoption of machines in the past didn’t make human labor obsolete, there’s no guarantee that future technology will work the same. Maybe this is an issue in the long-term, but for now at least automation probably isn’t taking away many jobs.

To hear me confidently declare that may come as a surprise to some, given the steady flow of articles sounding the alarm about a new paper by Massachusetts Institute of Technology economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo. Entitled […]

In the Age of Automation, Where Will Workers Fit Into the Future of Manufacturing?

In the Age of Automation, Where Will Workers Fit Into the Future of Manufacturing?

Humans can’t execute simple tasks with the speed and consistency computers can. Humans can’t execute simple tasks with the speed and consistency computers can. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Humans can’t execute simple tasks with the speed and consistency computers can. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Just a few years ago, the prevailing strategy in labor-dependent industries was to move production offshore. Cheap overseas labor increased the competitiveness and profitability of a typical manufacturing business.But that strategy is becoming harder to justify. As automated machinery takes the place of human workers, the cost benefits of offshore production are diminishing quickly. Interestingly, today’s U.S. manufacturing output […]

Malaysia must make ready for ‘Industry 4.0’ now, say employers and businesses

Malaysia must make ready for ‘Industry 4.0’ now, say employers and businesses

The arrival of ‘Industry 4.0’ may mean that students today may not have jobs in the fields for which they are studying, or may lack skills and knowledge necessary for areas where there will be jobs growth. — AFP pic KUALA LUMPUR, June 15 — Malaysia must make clear preparations for the impending automation and data usage that will fundamentally alter the employment landscape in coming decades, said industry groups.

Looking ahead to the advent of “Industry 4.0”, the trend towards increasing automation of jobs and the use of data, as well as the National Transformation 2050 (TN50), they said […]

Malaysia must make ready for ‘Industry 4.0’ now, say employers and businesses

Malaysia must make ready for ‘Industry 4.0’ now, say employers and businesses

The arrival of ‘Industry 4.0’ may mean that students today may not have jobs in the fields for which they are studying, or may lack skills and knowledge necessary for areas where there will be jobs growth. — AFP pic KUALA LUMPUR, June 15 — Malaysia must make clear preparations for the impending automation and data usage that will fundamentally alter the employment landscape in coming decades, said industry groups.

Looking ahead to the advent of “Industry 4.0”, the trend towards increasing automation of jobs and the use of data, as well as the National Transformation 2050 (TN50), they said […]

Forget Coal, the Robots Are Really Coming For the Retail Jobs

Forget Coal, the Robots Are Really Coming For the Retail Jobs

IDFK303/Getty Images President Trump has indicated that retaining and restoring jobs in manufacturing and coal is a top priority for his administration. Automation is the biggest threat to those industries — but mining and manufacturing aren’t the only sectors under siege from the robots.

In fact, retail workers could be among the hardest hit by automation in the coming decade. Up to 47 percent of current retail workers could be replaced by machines over the course of the next 10 years, according to the results of an extensive study released last month. As many as 7.5 million workers could lose […]

The robots are coming: here are some jobs that won’t exist in 10 years

The robots are coming: here are some jobs that won’t exist in 10 years

The World Economic Forum forecasts that 5.1 million jobs will be lost to machines between 2015 and 2020. Photo: Sunny Lee The tech industry has already already embedding cognitive (conscious mental activities such as human thinking, understanding, learning) AI into a variety of products. Photo: Alamy AI is now at the centre of a myriad of real world applications, from facial recognition software and cybersecurity to more futuristic technologies such as autonomous self-driving vehicles. Photo: AFP An engineer holds the head of Samantha, a sex doll packed with artificial intelligence providing her the capability to respond to different scenarios […]

21st Century Automation: Is This Time Truly Different?

21st Century Automation: Is This Time Truly Different?

In recent years, a great deal has been written about the effect of automation on employment. On the one hand, the pessimists predict that we’re nearing a tipping point, where the wealth created by robots will be reserved for an elite few, while a permanent social underclass will remain forever unemployable. Alternatively, the eternal optimists portend that we are on the path to a post-scarcity world, and that the road ahead may be long, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. All in all, the optimists probably get a lot more right than the […]

Rockwell and Manpower team up to train new generation of digital-age manufacturing workers

Rockwell and Manpower team up to train new generation of digital-age manufacturing workers

(Photo: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel files) The next generation of digital-age manufacturing workers will need to be tech-savvy and able to sync with artificial intelligence.

Such workers are deemed essential for any industrial economy that wants to be competitive, including manufacturing-heavy Wisconsin.

And they are in woefully short supply.ManpowerGroup Inc., a global staffing firm, and Rockwell Automation Inc., which supplies tech-driven industrial productivity systems, on Tuesday announced they are collaborating to train what they call a new breed of “advanced digital manufacturing” workers.The two Milwaukee-based companies promise to focus on U.S. military veterans who are re-entering the civilian workforce. Rockwell and Manpower […]

Sewing robots seem likely to disrupt the U.S. apparel industry

U.S. apparel-making jobs have plummeted by 65% over the last 15 years as the work has moved to lower-wage countries. And now greater automation — while promising to reshape the manufacture of some clothing-makers to the U.S. — seem likely to be another hit to industry employment.

Jobs in apparel manufacturing

JAN. 2002365.6k300k200kJAN. 2017127.1k100k0’02’05’10’15’17Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics ; Chart: Lazaro Gamio / Axios There is no telling how many more jobs will be lost: Automation that has shaken up other industries has been slow getting to apparel, because of how fabrics move and stretch while being sewn. Instead, companies have […]

Work Wanted: Manufacturing jobs harder to find

They say that the factory of the future will have just two employees: a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to make sure the man doesn’t touch anything.

Although that factory is still far in the future, the manufacturing sector has shed a third of its total employment in the past 30 years. Presidential candidate Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail to renegotiate trade deals and “bring back” jobs. In Erie, Pa., in August 2016, he declared “I promise we can fix it so fast. We will […]