Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Vardi: Does automation doom the future of work?

Two schools of economists haggle over the ultimate impact of automation on employment.

The Neoclassicals soothe us with human resilience: jobs lost will eventually be balanced by new jobs found. The Neo-Luddites reply that technological advances have changed the rules, and many jobs will be lost forever.

“So, who is right? Nobody knows,” said Moshe Y. Vardi, the Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering at Rice University, who suggests we examine the past and present before drawing grand conclusions about the future.Vardi’s lecture, “Humans, Machines and Work: The Future is Now,” was sponsored by the Ken Kennedy Institute […]

Automation, the hitch in vows to bring back manufacturing?

Automation, the hitch in vows to bring back manufacturing?

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — In the 1960s, Lehigh Valley high school graduates had a lot of options.

Manufacturers such as Air Products, Ingersoll Rand and Bethlehem Steel offered well-paying jobs that promised a route to the middle class.

"You would expect to go get a job, get married, have kids, get a pension one day and everyone would be fat, dumb and happy," said Frank Behum, who worked at Bethlehem Steel for more than three decades before retiring in 1997, months before the company went under.Nothing really replaced those jobs. They required hard work under sometimes grueling conditions, but they paid […]

Robotics, driverless tech are taking over mining jobs

Robotics, driverless tech are taking over mining jobs

Coal is transported via conveyor belt to the coal-fired Jim Bridger Power Plant. The coal is supplied by a mine owned by PacifiCorp and the Idaho Power Company, outside Point of the Rocks, Wyoming. In the next decade, the mining industry may lose more than half of its jobs to automation, according to a new report. That’s not based on future technologies, but on automated equipment being deployed today.

The mining industry is primed for automation. It’s capital intensive, buys expensive equipment and pays relatively well.

This industry is adopting self-driving trucks, automated loaders and automated drilling and tunnel-boring systems. It […]

The delusion of improved skills

The delusion of improved skills

cartoon Everybody agrees that better education and improved skills, for as many people as possible, is crucial to increasing productivity and living standards and to tackling rising inequality. But what if everybody is wrong?
Most economists are certain that human capital is as important to productivity growth as physical capital. And to some degree, that’s obviously true. Modern economies would not be possible without widespread literacy and numeracy: many emerging economies are held back by inadequate skills.
But one striking feature of the modern economy is how few skilled people are needed to drive crucial areas of economic activity. […]

This Is What’s Next Now That the Gig Economy Has Changed Everything

This Is What's Next Now That the Gig Economy Has Changed Everything

Greater change is coming and new emerging platforms are changing markets in multiple industries.

The rise of the freelancer: some estimates are that over 54 million Americans are now taking contractual gigs rather than steady employment. After the recession, some temporary gigs were necessary — but the experiments in Mechanical Turk and Uber driving gigs that sprouted up seemingly over night took hold. Contractors and freelancers are the norm, now.

But perhaps not for long — freelancers may turn out to be temps, after all, if technology keeps moving at the blistering pace we’ve seen. That’s just the beginning […]

The Impact of Technology’s Invisible Hand

The Impact of Technology’s Invisible Hand

A worker pushes a cart among shelves lined with goods at an Amazon warehouse in Brieselang, Germany, on September 4, 2014. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images) The telltale sign that we are in a new age of automation isn’t in the latest food ordering apps, driverless taxis, or noodle-cooking robots. It’s in stagnant wages.

“We are not going to wake up tomorrow and see that robots have taken all the jobs,” said Ryan Avent, senior editor at The Economist. “We are going to see, instead, stresses on our wages, on our workers, and on our institutions. That’s what the great robot revolution […]

Is a Robot After Your Job?

Is a Robot After Your Job?

With the economy the way it is, most manufacturing workers are afraid that their company will move out of the country, or that someone who will work for less will get their job. Now, there is another fear—is a robot after your job? In some factories, robots already outnumber the human workers. The general factory workforce is going through radical changes with more robots being employed at a vigorous pace. How will this affect your job? An Oxford study reports that 47% of all jobs will be taken over by a robot within the next twenty years.

Robotic technology is […]

Study: Huge job boost from turning to machines

Study: Huge job boost from turning to machines

Switzerland can expect 270,000 new jobs created through the first quarter of this century due to workplace automation transforming the economy, a leading consulting firm said on Thursday.

The report from Deloitte concludes that the phenomenon of automation is having a “positive impact on the Swiss labour market” by creating many more jobs than are being replaced by machines. The engine behind that, it says, would be lower prices for goods and higher wages.

“Overall, increasing automation brings considerable advantages for the Swiss economy as a whole as well as for companies,” Deloitte said in a statement . “It also […]

Technology is not here to take our jobs

Technology is not here to take our jobs

Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint Jack Ma knows a thing or two about technological innovation and disruption. The founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group has built it into the world’s fifth-largest Internet company by revenue. In a letter to shareholders earlier this month, he had this to say: “Throughout history, technological disruptions have followed similar trajectories: 20 years of technological disruption followed by 30 years of further rapid change as new technologies are applied throughout society. The Internet revolution is a historical inflection point, much like when electricity was introduced, and it may have an even greater impact.”

This is in keeping […]

The fetishisation of work is making us miserable. Let’s learn to live again

The fetishisation of work is making us miserable. Let’s learn to live again

‘Employees say their bosses want them to put job before family and many are expected to be on call around the clock. More than one in four say they work longer hours than they want to.’ Photograph: Alamy Mounting pressures at work are taking a heavy toll on life at home . Employees say their bosses want them to put job before family, and many are expected to be on call around the clock. More than one in four say they work longer hours than they want to, we learn from the latest YouGov poll .

It’s not a pretty […]