Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

The despicable inequality and cruel egalitarianism of wealth: towards a draft wealth tax to fund a basic income

The despicable inequality and cruel egalitarianism of wealth: towards a draft wealth tax to fund a basic income

Part 3 of a series. To those who have, more shall be given. Cities get more investment. From those who have little, more shall be taken. Small towns are finding that they are excluded from the excitement happening everywhere else and little investment goes their way.

The idea of capitalism – that goods should bear market prices, that justly acquired property is yours, and exchange between willing participants be free of encumbrances – is everywhere under threat.

There is, however, little policy difference between the extreme-left and extreme-right populist response. Both demand a remarkably statist approach to government, and both are […]

Why Am I Yelling At CNN’s Poppy Harlow?

Why Am I Yelling At CNN’s Poppy Harlow?

Honestly, I don’t usually talk back to the TV. But I couldn’t contain myself during Poppy Harlow’s December 10 interview with John Feltner, the United Steelworkers vice president of the Rexnord local union where 300 jobs are moving from Indianapolis to Mexico.

In discussing the move, Ms. Harlow twice resorted to the much repeated trope that the loss of American manufacturing jobs is really about automation and technology.

HARLOW: …. What would you ― what is the number-one thing you would like to see the incoming administration do that you think will help people in your situation? Because, you know, […]

The 10 most endangered jobs in America

The 10 most endangered jobs in America

Are robots really taking away jobs from humans? Yes and no.

The good news is there will probably be an increase in hiring opportunities in most jobs over the next several years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and some economists .

The bad news is that some jobs are falling prey to automation as well as to changing consumer habits.Jobs platform CareerCast compiled data from the BLS and its own list of 200 common jobs to figure out which careers have the bleakest growth outlook from 2014 to 2024.Here are 10 fields that are expected to shrink the […]

Burger robots: Labor nod revives image but reality’s complex

Burger robots: Labor nod revives image but reality's complex

FILE – In this Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016, file photo, McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook demonstrates an order kiosk, with cashier Esmirna DeLeon, during a presentation at a McDonald’s restaurant in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood. Restaurant chains including McDonald’s and Olive Garden are rolling out options like ordering kiosks and tabletop tablets. Those changes may eventually reduce or change the nature of restaurant jobs, but stem more from the industry adapting to customer habits, and are likely regardless of wages. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s a scenario often invoked by critics of minimum wage increases: Fast-food workers […]

How will we pay for goods produced by robots that have taken our jobs?

How will we pay for goods produced by robots that have taken our jobs?

Grandkids are so much fun, and you can give them back. We just had our fourth grandchild on Nov. 19, so everything is fresh.

The oldest is 3 years old and loves the dirt. His brother may turn out to be a very shy Broadway actor. Freddie, our granddaughter, might just be the cutest “whatever she wants to be” person, but, at just 1, she has much time to decide.

And now we have another precious grandchild, and of course I wondered what she will experience in her life, as with the other three, as well.Screen flipping, buttons and rebooting are […]

Trump’s Pick of Elon Musk for His Policy Forum is Actually Pretty Smart

Trump's Pick of Elon Musk for His Policy Forum is Actually Pretty Smart

Donald Trump set tongues wagging on Wednesday when it was revealed, prior to a meeting with some of tech’s biggest names at Trump Tower, that Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick would be join Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum . The forum, comprised of business leaders who will meet frequently to advise Trump on policy, was reportedly criticized for a lack of Silicon Valley leaders, and some might argue that Wednesday’s announcement is a haphazard attempt at fixing that.

Actually, the timing makes perfect sense, and here’s why. Musk and Kalanick are actively pursuing automation, especially autonomous […]

The answer to America’s working class job crisis is hard, but not mysterious

The answer to America's working class job crisis is hard, but not mysterious

View Caption Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor/File

Malden, Mass. — Antonio Blanc, a senior at Malden High School, knows the risk of being left behind.

He’s struggled to keep up at school, distracted by family instability and the part-time kitchen jobs he needs to pay the bills now he’s living alone. His plan after graduation is to enroll in a technical college and get a certificate in precision machinery.“I want to learn a skill, something I can do when I’m done with school,” he says.For students like Mr. Blanc, that step of education beyond high school holds the […]

Vietnam’s low-skilled labor force threatened by robots

Vietnam’s low-skilled labor force threatened by robots

A woman works at a furniture factory in Hanoi. Photo by Reuters/Kham 86 percent of garment workers could lose their jobs in the coming decades, according to the International Labor Organization.

Vietnam’s workforce is made up largely of untrained and low-skilled workers who are at high risk of being replaced by automation and robots in the near future, labor experts said at a conference in Hanoi on Tuesday.

Dao Hong Lan, vice minister of labor, said Vietnam currently has 54.36 million workers but nearly 80 percent of them have not received any training or degrees for their jobs.The country’s […]

job automation

job automation

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Albert Einstein , Bill Joy: nanobots , Black-Scholes formula , call centre , collateralized debt obligation , credit crunch , en.wikipedia.org , factory automation , full employment , income inequality , index card , industrial robot , inventory management , invisible hand , job automation , John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren , John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment , knowledge worker , low skilled workers , moral hazard , pattern recognition , prediction markets , Productivity paradox , Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence , Silicon Valley , Stephen Hawking , strong AI , superintelligent […]

ATMs, bank tellers, and the automation paradox

ATMs, bank tellers, and the automation paradox

In September 1969 the Chemical Bank branch in Rockville Center, New York opened the first automatic teller machines. The first ATM was only able to give out cash, but by 1971 the machine could handle multiple functions , including providing customers’ account balances. The machine could do the job that was once reserved for human tellers. Over the next three decades, the number of ATMs increased exponentially. Today there are about 400,000 ATMs across America.

You can probably imagine what happened to bank teller jobs, can’t you? Their numbers increased.

What? That’s not what you expected? You thought the increase in […]