Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Econometer: Will robots take SD jobs?

Econometer: Will robots take SD jobs?

New recruit "Pepper" the robot, a humanoid robot designed to welcome and take care of visitors and patients, holds the hand of a new born baby at AZ Damiaan hospital in Ostend, Belgium. Q: Given the trend toward more automated technologies, like self-driving Uber cars , do you think unskilled San Diegans will struggle to find work in the future? Phil Blair, Manpower

Answer: Yes

The lower your skill levels, the more prone you are to be laid off from your jobs due to automation/technology, outsourcing and irrelevant work. We all have a career manager, and it is us. […]

Selling free trade is a tall order. But Chris Bowen is doing better than Scott Morrison

Selling free trade is a tall order. But Chris Bowen is doing better than Scott Morrison

‘Arguing for more free trade while also pledging a crackdown on welfare and bemoaning the “taxed-nots”, as Morrison did, is just self-defeating.’ Photograph: Mal Fairclough/EPA Chris Bowen this week set out his plans for winning the fight against the rise of protectionism. It’s a fight in which those in favour of free trade have been shown over the past year – whether in the Brexit vote or the inability to counter Donald Trump – to have been completely inept. Among the best aspect of Bowen’s plan of attack is that he has realised one of the reasons for this […]

Uber will wipe out skills not jobs

Uber will wipe out skills not jobs

Uber’s announcement to add self-driving cars to its usual taxi services in the United States is as unexpected as it is indicative of the automated future of the sharing economy. Governments should limit their efforts to regulate the rapidly-evolving sharing economy and instead focus on developing relevant skills. Ride-hailing app Uber recently announced a pilot project testing the use of self-driving cars in the streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The announcement was quite unexpected since the technology of automated passenger cars is not even close to hitting the markets. There are major technological flaws to be resolved and regulators have […]

McRobots Coming to a Restaurant Near You

McRobots Coming to a Restaurant Near You

Oh the elusive perfect employee!

That employee who is never late, and doesn’t take bathroom or cigarette breaks.

That employee who is never sick, and doesn’t take vacations.That employee who doesn’t have family, and is committed to the job.That employee who is always consistent, and doesn’t make mistakes.And best of all, that employee who works 24 hours a day, for free.With rising minimum wage, fast food chains in the United States are looking to replace human employees — and their wages — with robots . McDonalds [NYSE:MCD] , Panera [NASDAQ:PNRA] and Wendy’s [NASDAQ:WEN] have already implemented some automation into their restaurants. […]

Automation Technologies and the Future of Work

Last year, McKinsey launched a multi-year study to explore the potential impact of automation technologies on jobs, organizations and the future of work.“Can we look forward to vast improvements in productivity, freedom from boring work, and improved quality of life?,” its initial article on the study asked, or “Should we fear threats to jobs, disruptions to organizations, and strains on the social fabric?”

Most jobs involve a number of different tasks or activities.Some of these activities are more amenable to automation than others.But just because some of the activities have been automated, does not imply that the whole job has […]

The Next Industrial Revolution

The Next Industrial Revolution

A “crisis of abundance” initially seems like a paradox. After all, abundance is the ultimate goal of technology and economics. But consider the early history of the electric washing machine. In the 1920s, factories churned them out in droves. (With the average output of manufacturing workers rising by a third between 1923 and 1929, making more washing machines was relatively cheap.) But as the decade ended, factories saw they were making many more than American households demanded. Companies cut back their output and laid off workers even before the stock market crashed in 1929. Indeed, some economists have said […]

Robots are after our jobs: what can we do?

Robots are after our jobs: what can we do?

Photo: The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images Will smart automation, intelligent software bots and brainy robots take away our jobs anytime soon?

Pose this question to any Indian working in a company where unions are strong, or to any Indian who has a government job, or to the majority of Indians who work in the unorganized sector—those who drive taxis, trucks pull handcarts, hawk goods on footpaths or are employed as maids—and you will, in all probability, be looked at askance or even dismissed as an uninformed prophet of doom.

The reaction may not be surprising in emerging countries like India, […]

Brunell: China betting on advanced robots

Brunell: China betting on advanced robots

Don Brunell China has a new industrial strategy which is capturing attention worldwide. It is striving to become an innovation economy using advanced automation, connected robots and artificial intelligence.

China intends to shake the image of just being a nation for low-cost manufacturing. Instead, it wants to be known for producing cutting-edge, reliable and high-quality products — even making robots.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, the Chinese are creating an “industrial internet” which gathers information and uses it across manufacturing networks, including suppliers and customers.Their robots are connected systems with advanced sensors, sophisticated software and actuators (devices which can […]

Labor Day 2016: More Automation, More Foreign Workers, Fewer Jobs for Americans

Labor Day 2016: More Automation, More Foreign Workers, Fewer Jobs for Americans

Labor Day is becoming a time of dismal reflection as automation technology continues its incursion into new places in the jobs economy. For example, self-driving taxis were rolled out for public testing in Singapore and Pittsburgh in August. A robot security guard was sighted in a San Francisco parking lot earlier in the summer. In California, the new $15 minimum wage has pushed fast food restaurants to replace counter workers with ordering kiosks . It was reported a few days ago that Walmart is cutting hundreds of accounting and invoicing jobs , which sounds like a software upgrade or […]

Lack of skilled labor threatens manufacturing

Lack of skilled labor threatens manufacturing

During the 2016 primary election, several presidential candidates repeatedly lamented the loss of American manufacturing jobs. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump built their populist economic platforms around the issue, soon followed by other candidates and members of Congress. None of the rhetoric explains manufacturing as an industry or the entire economy.

Over the last 20 years, low-skilled manufacturing jobs have vanished from the U.S. while high skilled jobs flourish. The central political narrative is that jobs are primarily lost to overseas competitors.

While this may be anecdotally true, low-skilled manufacturing jobs disappeared primarily as the result of automation — which, ironically, […]