Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

The coming disruption: How robots might upend different professions

The coming disruption: How robots might upend different professions

Oxford researchers found the jobs most at-risk from automation require repetitive tasks, which is why it placed telemarketers, tax-preparers, and insurance underwriters atop the endangered species list. In this Aug. 13, 2014 photo, an overall view of a call center in the northern border city of Tijuana, Mexico. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Alex Cossio WASHINGTON, United States of America – A wrecking ball is coming for the labour market, analysts warn. One such example: an Oxford study that concludes 47 per cent of jobs risk being automated.

As computer-processing power doubles each year and machines learn from their mistakes, the upcoming federal […]

An automated world is coming and managing the unemployment fallout won’t be easy

An automated world is coming and managing the unemployment fallout won't be easy

One of the more striking things about economic debate in this country is that there is a broad call for “more reform” and yet an equally narrow view of what such reform should constitute.

Economic reform is often synonymous with reducing labour costs and increasing after-tax profit, because much of the debate is generated by those whose view of the world and position in life is benefitted by such outcomes. But many of these styles of reform are most suited to an economy that might be passing us by – one where output is greatly disconnected from employment.

While watching the […]

There is a huge hole in Trump’s promise to bring back US manufacturing jobs

There is a huge hole in Trump's promise to bring back US manufacturing jobs

YouTube/iPhone-Fan When Donald Trump was running for president, he said companies should "buy American and hire American."

But in manufacturing these days, buying American often means creating jobs for robots, not humans.

The story of SoftWear, a sewing-automation company in Atlanta, should throw some cold water on Trump’s dreams of returning thousands of Americans to manufacturing jobs.SoftWear started with a group of Georgia Tech professors playing around with robots and became a company because of an earlier "Buy American" push.Since 2002, a rule known as the Berry Amendment has prohibited the Defense Department from procuring "food, clothing, fabrics, fibers, yarns, other […]

Can President Trump rescue the Rust Belt?

Can President Trump rescue the Rust Belt?

President Trump promised to reverse the decades-long decline of manufacturing jobs. Can it be done? Here’s everything you need to know:

Why is the Rust Belt hurting?
Once the booming heart of America’s manufacturing industry, the Rust Belt is now dotted with derelict factory buildings, empty warehouses, and struggling downtowns filled with pawnshops and boarded-up stores. The region, which stretches from western New York to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, has been in serious decline since 1979 — the year that U.S. manufacturing employment peaked. Over the past four decades, manufacturing jobs have plunged by […]

In Pursuit of Profession: Jobs of Future Past?

In Pursuit of Profession: Jobs of Future Past?

The hot topic in education these days is science, technology, engineering and math, the so-called STEM classes. Both public and private school districts have even dedicated entire campuses where the focus is on the STEM subjects. In addition, short-term coding programs – called coding boot camps – have popped up in cities across the nation that promise to teach students from all walks of life how to code in as little as twelve weeks. These programs not only profess a graduation rate of more than 90-percent, graduates can also expect to earn a six-figure salary with several companies competing […]

How to survive the robot-fueled jobs apocalypse

How to survive the robot-fueled jobs apocalypse

Credit: REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch If rumors that James Cameron is interested in picking up Terminator 6 prove true, perhaps Bill Gates will be in the running for a cameo.

Gates recently cautioned that robots are replacing humans in a wide range of jobs, and he proposed implementing a robot tax as a way to temporarily slow the spread of automation. He was promptly — and predictably — trashed by a bevy of economists . [ Roundup: TensorFlow, Spark MLlib, Scikit-learn, MXNet, Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, and Caffe machine learning and deep learning frameworks. | Get a digest of the day’s top tech […]

Automation, not foreign trade, kills American jobs

Donald Trump boasts that his "America First" trade and economic policies are bringing well-paid manufacturing jobs back to America. That’s probably his biggest "deliverable" to Trump voters. But is this claim true?

Trump won the presidency partly because he voiced the anger of American workers about lost jobs and stagnant wages. But in the process, he fundamentally misled the country by claiming that trade is the major cause of job losses, and that renegotiating trade agreements would save the middle class.

What Trump is offering is a palliative that has raised false hopes. He implies that a few good trade deals […]

Automation Takes Hold, But Humans Still Needed

A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute — A Future That Works: Automation, Employment, and Productivity — highlights trends in automation technologies — including robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning — and their effects on businesses and economies worldwide. Some of the key findings of the report are highlighted below: Automating activities can reduce errors and improve quality, while improving productivity and, thereby, business performance.

Although less than 5 percent of all occupations can be fully automated, about 60 percent of occupations are comprised of at least 30 percent of activities that can be automated. Importantly, more occupations […]

Automation Poses No Doomsday Scenario for Jobs in Canada

March 16, 2017 – Automation poses no doomsday scenario for jobs in Canada, suggests a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Future Shock? The Impact of Automation on Canada’s Labour Market,” authors Matthias Oschinski and Rosalie Wyonch find that a drastic shift in employment due to automation is unlikely in the near future, although particular industries and types of occupations will be disrupted more than others.

Despite recent alarmist claims that large portions of the Canadian workforce will soon be unemployed, the authors caution policymakers from hitting the panic button. “We find no evidence of an imminent threat […]

Automation Poses No Doomsday Scenario for Jobs in Canada – C.D. Howe Institute

TORONTO, March 16, 2017 /CNW/ – Automation poses no doomsday scenario for jobs in Canada, suggests a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In "Future Shock? The Impact of Automation on Canada’s Labour Market," authors Matthias Oschinski and Rosalie Wyonch find that a drastic shift in employment due to automation is unlikely in the near future, although particular industries and types of occupations will be disrupted more than others.

Despite recent alarmist claims that large portions of the Canadian workforce will soon be unemployed, the authors caution policymakers from hitting the panic button. "We find no evidence of an […]