Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Greens look to basic income for poverty

Greens look to basic income for poverty

Sonia Furstenau — image credit: file Sonia Furstenau

I applaud The Citizen for asking the question “What will candidates do about poverty?”, as it’s a crucial issue, and one that needs urgent political action.

As a teacher at Dwight School in Shawnigan Lake, we participated in several community-based initiatives to fill gaps created by poverty in the region. Each year students and teachers ran a food drive to collect food and funds for the CMS Food Bank in Mill Bay. I also coordinated with Meals on the Ground to get Dwight students to participate in this terrific local effort; many […]

In the Automation Debate, Don’t Forget the Job Multiplier Effect

In the Automation Debate, Don’t Forget the Job Multiplier Effect

Emsi Senior Economist/Co-Founder In his 1950s satire Player Piano , author Kurt Vonnegut describes a dark dystopia where automation has led to a world of meager consumption and desperate idleness. The vision of workers displaced by machines predates this though, and is perhaps most associated with the 19 th century Luddite movement where workers sabotaged machinery for fear of losing jobs. In economic thought, the prospect of labor-replacing technology has a still much longer history.

The opinion of most economists has been that “Luddite fears” are misplaced. New technology is economically synonymous with increased efficiency, new and cheaper products, […]

The definition of “maximum employment” needs updating

The definition of “maximum employment” needs updating

“IT IS fair to say the economy is near maximum employment,” said Janet Yellen, chairman of the Federal Reserve, in recent comments preparing markets for rate rises to come. But “maximum employment”, like pornography, is in the eye of the beholder. American adults, of whom only about 69% have a job, seem less than maximally employed. In previous eras, governments of countries scarred by economic hardship set themselves the goal of “full” employment. Today, the target is termed “maximum”. But it is the same concept. It needs a bit of updating.

Ms Yellen has a particular definition of maximum employment […]

Increased automation guarantees a bleak outlook for Trump’s promises to coal miners

Increased automation guarantees a bleak outlook for Trump’s promises to coal miners

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President Trump has made promises to make the coal industry great again, vowing to reverse decades of the industry’s downward employment trajectory. Here, we introduce another reason why coal will face an uphill battle: automation.

President Trump has made empty promises to make the coal industry great again, vowing to reverse decades of the industry’s downward employment trajectory. In previous blog posts (see here and here ), we have shown how his promises to put coal miners back to work will be a tall order. Here, we introduce another reason why coal will face an […]

Trump’s TPP pullout could hurt workers more than it helps

Trump's TPP pullout could hurt workers more than it helps

When he signed the executive order formally scrapping a trade deal with 11 Pacific Rim countries, President Donald Trump proclaimed the move a "great thing for the American worker."

But a chorus of trade experts and economists this week have argued that the pulling out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership will have exactly the opposite impact.

"Virtually all economic analyses of the proposed TPP … provided empirical arguments that the TPP would raise U.S. workers’ income, both for highly educated and less educated workers," according to Jeffrey Bergstrand, finance professor at the University of Notre Dame and a former Federal Reserve […]

The Case For Universal Basic Income

The Case For Universal Basic Income

When the government provides a basic income to all citizens of the country without any conditions attached, it is termed as universal basic income. It is a form of social security. There is increasing debate in the developed countries about the introduction of Universal Basic Income.

The combination of four factors, globalization, outsourcing, automaton, and the increasing adaptation and use of artificial intelligence is taking a growing toll on the low-income and middle-class sections of the society in developed countries, which is prompting the debate for the introduction of universal basic income.

In Canada, manufacturing employment has decreased. According to Statistics […]

To Fix Employment, Fix Automation—The Real Job Killer Of Our Age

To Fix Employment, Fix Automation—The Real Job Killer Of Our Age

Even if a job can’t be fully automated, 60% of jobs could have 30% of their tasks automated. President Trump likes to blame trade, immigration, and over-regulation for job losses in the American heartland. But that’s generally not how economists see it. They say machines are a more important reason why companies don’t employ people like they used to. In several industries, like steel, industrial output is as high as it’s always been . It’s just that manufacturers need less labor to do the work. "Almost 88 percent of job losses in manufacturing in recent years can be attributable […]

Work in an Automated Future

Work in an Automated Future

LONDON – Disruptive technologies are now dictating our future, as new innovations increasingly blur the lines between physical, digital, and biological realms. Robots are already in our operating rooms and fast-food restaurants; we can now use 3D imaging and stem-cell extraction to grow human bones from a patient’s own cells; and 3D printing is creating a circular economy in which we can use and then reuse raw materials.

This tsunami of technological innovation will continue to change profoundly how we live and work, and how our societies operate. In what is now called the Fourth Industrial Revolution , technologies that […]

Automation may curtail employment opportunities: Rangarajan

Hyderabad, Jan 24 Former Reserve Bank Governor, C Rangarajan today cautioned that automation which is part of "Digital Age" may curtail employment opportunities to people even though it is expected to create jobs at "higher" levels.

"Though the situation in India with regard to replacement of jobs by machines is not alarming, it should be noted for future considerations," Rangarajan said at the Seventh Foundation Day Lecture at the ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE) here.

Lakshmi Narayana, vice chairman of Cognizant delivered the keynote address titled ‘Digital Way Forward’."Until recently, until the dawn of the digital age, the replacement of […]

Leonid Bershidsky: The latest bad idea from France: Tax those darned job-stealing … robots?

Leonid Bershidsky: The latest bad idea from France: Tax those darned job-stealing … robots?

The ideas of Benoit Hamon, the surprise front-runner in France’s presidential primaries of the Socialist Party, are far to the left of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and even the U.K. Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn. This, of course, is the era of the expanding Overton Window, with radical ideas bursting into the mainstream. One Hamon proposal in particular, however, should never make it: a tax on robots, based on the premise that their proliferation is bad for human employment.

Hamon’s most discussed proposal is a US$805 (750 euro) monthly universal basic income for the French. It doesn’t make much sense, primarily […]