Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Treasury’s Mnuchin is ‘out of touch with reality’ on A.I.’s job-destroying potential, billionaire says

Treasury's Mnuchin is 'out of touch with reality' on A.I.'s job-destroying potential, billionaire says

The U.S. workforce is about to undergo "unprecedented job destruction" as computers and robots get smarter, billionaire Jeff Greene told CNBC on Tuesday.

The founder of The Greene Institute, which holds an annual conference focusing on disruptive forces in the economy, took Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to task for recently saying he’s not worried about artificial intelligence displacing jobs for at least 50 to 100 years.

On "Squawk Box," Greene said Mnuchin is "completely out of touch with reality."Greene argued that AI has the potential decimate the white-collar workforce of the future in a similar way automated factories replaced blue-collar workers […]

Robots do destroy jobs and lower wages, says new study

Robots do destroy jobs and lower wages, says new study

Photo by Bill Puglianov / Getty Images The fear that automation in the form of robots or artificial intelligence is going to destroy jobs is widespread. But it can be difficult to gauge just how serious to take the threat. Different reports offer different estimations of how many jobs will be lost, while politicians and economists argue that technology creates as many jobs as it destroys, maintaining an equilibrium in employment over the long run.

But is this really true? A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research aims to add some solid numbers to the debate, looking […]

A simple way to see why Trump’s climate order won’t bring back many coal jobs

A simple way to see why Trump’s climate order won’t bring back many coal jobs

A train loaded with coal in Williamson, West Virginia. One of the big justifications the Trump administration is using to dismantle US climate policies is that these moves would help reverse the collapse of the coal industry and bring back mining jobs.

“Will it bring back coal jobs? I think absolutely it will,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said on Sunday, of Trump’s new executive order.

I’ve explained in the past why this is probably wrong — coal mining employment is in decline for a wide variety of reasons: automation of mining; competition from cheap natural gas in the power sector; collapsing […]

‘Robots’ could take 57,000 jobs in Glasgow over the next 20 years

'Robots' could take 57,000 jobs in Glasgow over the next 20 years

(Photo: Facebook) Glasgow has always been known being a driving force in developing new technologies.

But can technology ever go too far?

New figures might argue that case – with around 57,000 job losses predicted for Glasgow over the next 20 years due to the development of automation and robotics.Automation is one of the world’s fastest growing industries and cities like Glasgow are set to feel the biggest impact.City centre auditors, Deloitte have found that, across UK, 2,168,000 jobs in the wholesale and retail sector have a high chance of being automated in the next twenty years- that’s 59 percent of […]

Working in the future: how humans need to adapt

Working in the future: how humans need to adapt

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th Century, machines have been taking over from human workers.
They are cheaper to run and produce more, but will robots end up doing all our work in the future, and what will be our role be in society?
The shift to automation brought mass production and a rise in global demand, but also anxiety over job losses – and those fears still exist today.
Experts believe the latest cyber-physical systems and the “Internet of things” demonstrate how we are now in the fourth phase of the Industrial Revolution, […]

Wow.. automation destroys jobs. Who knew?

Who is winning the race for jobs between robots and humans? Last year, two leading economists described a future in which humans come out ahead. But now they’ve declared a different winner: the robots. From a report on the New York Times:
The industry most affected by automation is manufacturing. For every robot per thousand workers, up to six workers lost their jobs and wages fell by as much as three-fourths of a percent, according to a new paper by the economists, Daron Acemoglu of M.I.T. and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University. It appears to be the first study […]

Evidence That Robots Are Winning the Race for American Jobs

Evidence That Robots Are Winning the Race for American Jobs

Who is winning the race for jobs between robots and humans? Last year, two leading economists described a future in which humans come out ahead. But now they’ve declared a different winner: the robots.

The industry most affected by automation is manufacturing. For every robot per thousand workers, up to six workers lost their jobs and wages fell by as much as three-fourths of a percent, according to a new paper by the economists, Daron Acemoglu of M.I.T. and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University. It appears to be the first study to quantify large, direct, negative effects of robots.

The paper […]

Study: Robots Actually Hurt Wages, Stoke Pay Inequality

Study: Robots Actually Hurt Wages, Stoke Pay Inequality

Robots weld the bodies of Porsche Macan SUVs at the new Porsche Macan factory at the Porsche plant on February 11, 2014. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images) Industrial robots had a significant impact on U.S. employment and wages for many local labor markets between 1990 and 2007, according to new research.

“Employment effects of robots are most pronounced in manufacturing, and in particular, in industries most exposed to robots; in routine manual, blue collar, assembly and related occupations; and for workers with less than college education,” reads the study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). “Interestingly, and perhaps […]

Compelling new evidence that robots are taking jobs and cutting wages

Compelling new evidence that robots are taking jobs and cutting wages

In his final speech as US president, Barack Obama warned of the “relentless pace of automation that makes a lot of good, middle-class jobs obsolete.” Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has said that governments will need to tax robots to replace forgone revenue when human workers lose their jobs.

If the past is prologue, these concerns are warranted.

In a recent study (pdf), economists Daren Acemoglu of MIT and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University try to quantify how worried we should be about robots. They examine the impact of industrial automation on the US labor market from 1990 to 2007. They […]

Top 5 reality checks if you think you can’t lose your job to a robot

Top 5 reality checks if you think you can't lose your job to a robot

Inside the production facility of La Colombe coffee factory at 6366 Norton Center Dr. on Jan. 24, 2017 in Norton Shores, Mich. La Colombe started production over two weeks ago and uses local milk to produce their canned draft latte beverages. (Joel Bissell | MLive.com) (Joel Bissell) Global accounting firm PwC recently studied the potential impact of automation on jobs in the United Kingdom, comparing it to three other economies, including the United States.

The results: The U.S. could lose up to 38 percent of its jobs to technology – including artificial intelligence and robots – by the early 2030s.

Among […]