Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Labour augmenting or job destroying?

Labour augmenting or job destroying?

Credit: Pixabay. This post highlights some of the possible economic implications of the so-called “ Fourth Industrial Revolution ” — whereby the use of new technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) threatens to transform entire industries and sectors.

Some economists have argued that, like past technical change, this will not create large-scale unemployment, as labour gets reallocated.

However, many technologists are less optimistic about the employment implications of AI. In this blog post we argue that the potential for simultaneous and rapid disruption, coupled with the breadth of human functions that AI might replicate, may have profound implications for labour markets.We conclude […]

How robotics and skilled labor are shaping the future of manufacturing

How robotics and skilled labor are shaping the future of manufacturing

The future of manufacturing is top of mind right now, not just in trade publications, but in mainstream media, too. However, there has been a bit of a tonal shift.

In the past, when the press covered the loss of manufacturing jobs , it usually was presented as an isolated fact. That has started to change with the last presidential election and its focus on the effects of losing the manufacturing base, not just in terms of economics, but how it’s made some Americans question the way they define themselves and the country.

Recently, MIT labor economist David Autor dispensed some […]

Automated workforce Tax robots for stealing jobs?

Automated workforce Tax robots for stealing jobs?

It’s not yet clear whether, with the rise of artificial intelligence, workforce automation will lead to an overall rise or drop in human job creation. If death and taxes are the only two things that a person can count on, should the latter apply to robots as well, as they take over jobs traditionally done by humans?

That’s the argument put forward by University of Geneva professor and tax lawyer Xavier Oberson.

Oberson argues that as robots take over more and more jobs – particularly in the industry and service sectors – there will be a rise in unemployment […]

How Automation Creates Incredible Potential for Human Advancement

How Automation Creates Incredible Potential for Human Advancement

Human built robotics are becoming mainstream; the advent of self driving cars is a perfect example of this. President Trump has tasked his Secretary of Transportation with evaluating the regulations for self driving cars that were set out under President Obama. Unlike many of Trump’s policies, this action seems genuine. This may be because no one on planet earth knows what to do about the rise of automation.

The difference that automation is beginning to make in our lives is significant, and most people don’t know what is happening behind the scenes. In the case of Trump, the SOT Elaine […]

It’s time to tax the robots

It’s time to tax the robots

Credit: Pixabay Bill Gates has a modest proposal: Tax robots to slow the growth of automation and fund the kinds of important jobs our economy ignores, such as caring for children and the elderly.

In an interview with the website Quartz , Gates notes that when a human does $50,000 worth of work, that income is taxed and money goes to the government, but when a robot does the work, no tax is paid on it. So he argues that robots need to be taxed to make up for that lost governmental income — and also to slow down the […]

Job creation vital for India to escape middle-income trap

Job creation vital for India to escape middle-income trap

The Indian economy has been witnessing a flux of good news lately. The GDP growth for the October-December quarter stood at seven per cent, beating all expectations of the negative impact of demonetisation. Stock markets hit their highest in two years, and the rupee stood at a three-month high. Representational image. Thinkstock However, scepticism over the true reflection of the demonetisation impact in growth figures has been widespread. Japanese financial holding company Nomura rightly pointed out that the figure fails to capture the negative impact on the unorganised sector as it is largely based on organised sector data.

Nevertheless, obsession […]

“The robots are coming”: How will automation affect London’s economy?

“The robots are coming”: How will automation affect London’s economy?

A robot on its way to work on Regent Street. Image: Getty. Labour assembly member Fiona Twycross on the rise of the robots.

The vision of the world of work being run by robots and machines is familiar from futuristic sci-fi films, but advances in technology could mean that a new post-industrial revolution is closer than we think.

Automation – the application of new technology to produce and deliver products and services – is not a new phenomenon: in London, for example, the tube and DLR already have driverless technology. However, the pace at which further automation is expected could […]

Brand human: why efficient automation will not always be best for business

Brand human: why efficient automation will not always be best for business

As study after study predicts huge swaths of jobs will be wiped out by automation in the coming decades , there’s one factor that might just throw a spanner in the works of the robot workforce takeover: the marketing power of brand human.

Just as Fair Trade and organic branding initiatives have convinced consumers to pay a higher price for products and services that might not be produced in the most coldly efficient way possible, businesses are realising the potential to carve out a niche in the face of growing disenchantment with the rise of the machines.

Marketers have identified a […]

Automation and robot-proofing your career

Automation and robot-proofing your career

STOCKTON — For more than 40 years, robots have been at work in U.S. factories doing mainly routine, repetitive work. While the number of manufacturing jobs has gone down in this country, productivity has gone up. Here in the Central Valley, automation has been important in distribution centers, such as Amazon.com, where robots often retrieve items from shelves for shipping, for example.

“Everything from wrapping pallets to self-programming robots,” said San Joaquin Partnership CEO Michael Ammann who recently saw the latest in manufacturing and distribution center automation on display at a Southern California trade show.

For example, vision software can now […]

Shifting Obligations for Employers with Advancement of AI-driven Automation and Rise of Independent Workers

Shifting Obligations for Employers with Advancement of AI-driven Automation and Rise of Independent Workers

McDougall-NLR Law Firm SEO Webinar, March 14, 2017, 3pm EDT As I continue to follow developments regarding the future of work, I recently attended an event co-sponsored by Cornell/ILR’s Institute for Workplace Studies in NYC and the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) addressing MGI’s report last Fall entitled Independent Work: Choice, Necessity and the Gig Economy . The report examines the increasing numbers of self-employed, freelance and temporary workers in the U.S. and Europe which are currently estimated to comprise 30 percent of the working-age population and rising. The report notes that many workers have chosen this autonomous path as […]