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If automation is the future, what comes next?

If automation is the future, what comes next?

Tanner Mirrlees Instead of hiring workers, many companies are employing new technology. No job seems safe from automation.

The factories of the world are filled with gigantic robotic arms programmed to put together everything from BMV luxury automobiles to Apple iPhones. Assembly lines are working with fewer blue collars.

Distribution warehouses, like those run by Amazon.com, employ robotic dollies to fill and carry shelves of books and beauty accessories to the small human workforce that packs these goods into the boxes mailed to our doors.Customer service is being designed away by user-friendly interfaces that shift tasks once done by paid workers […]

Automation will not just hit IT but these 10 jobs, too. Are you part of any?

Automation will not just hit IT but these 10 jobs, too. Are you part of any?

With land, machinery, chemicals and seeds becoming expensive and technology providing cost-effective labour solutions, the days of the individual farmers are numbered. Automation has everyone on the edge. According to a recent report by US-based research firm ‘HfS Research’, India’s IT services industry, which employs around 3.7 million people, will lose 6.4 lakh jobs to automation in the next five years.

The report further adds that the IT industry worldwide would see a net decrease of 9% in headcount, or about 1.4 million jobs, with countries such as the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States also taking hits […]

Infosys, TCS & Wipro see big jump in campus offers acceptance as jobs shrink with each passing year

Infosys, TCS & Wipro see big jump in campus offers acceptance as jobs shrink with each passing year

As the number of jobs in India’s $160-billion information technology industry starts shrinking with each passing year, engineering graduates across are scrambling for every vacancy in a sector that was once a big employment generator.

The percentage of fresh engineering graduates accepting campus offers from India’s largest software firms such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro has jumped significantly in the past three-four years, according to company data and executives.

For instance, at Wipro, job acceptance rates have risen to 85% from 65% three years ago, said an executive who didn’t want to be named. Others said this mirrors the […]

A post-employment society is looming

If the government sent you a check for $961.58 every two weeks — $25,000 a year — for the rest of your life, with adjustments for inflation, would that be enough for you to walk away from the working world forever?

How about $20,000 a year? $15,000? $10,000?

And there’s another side to that question. If you could get $25,000 a year to stay home, how much would you demand before showing up for work?These aren’t rhetorical questions. For those of us dependent on paychecks to put food on the table and sleep indoors every night, this could be our future, […]

Future proofing your job

Future proofing your job

On Monday night, ABC Four Corners ran a ripper report entitled “Future Proof” , which examines the future of work in Australia and whether we are preparing our children properly for the future.

The report features a bunch of experts and commentators, some of who believe that up to 40% of current jobs (5 million) could disappear within 15 years as technological change takes hold, although many of these will be replaced by new jobs in areas that we probably haven’t even thought of.

Below are some key extracts from the transcript , beginning with the pessimistic news: GEOFF THOMPSON: Today […]

Barack Obama wrong about size of U.S. steel production, work force

Barack Obama wrong about size of U.S. steel production, work force

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, share a laugh with U.S. President Barack Obama after his address to Parliament in Ottawa, on June 29, 2016. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP) Activity at the ArcelorMittal coke factory, which currently employs about 180 people, in Monessen, Pa., on June 30, 2016. (Jeff Swensen/New York Times) When Donald Trump made a high-profile speech outlining his approach to trade, he did it in Monessen, Pa., a town near Pittsburgh where a big steel mill has been shuttered for the past three decades.

A day after Trump’s speech, Barack […]

Politifact: Obama Wrong on Steel Production

Politifact: Obama Wrong on Steel Production

By Greg Richter | Tuesday, 05 Jul 2016 07:13 PM President Barack Obama got it wrong when he said last week that "The steel industry is producing as much steel in the United States as it ever was. It’s just (that) it needs one-tenth of the workers that it used to," Politifact says.
Obama made the claim during a summit in Ottawa one day after presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump slammed manufacturers for moving jobs into other countries. Trump was speaking near Pittsburgh, where the once dominant steel industry has been hammered in recent decades.

Obama took issue […]

The Enemies of Economic Independence

The founders sought more than political independence from Europe. They also sought to secure America’s economic independence. To that end, the second bill enacted by the first Congress was the Tariff Act of 1789 , the stated purpose of which was "the encouragement and protection of manufactures." The end result of America’s reliance on the tariff was both prosperity and economic independence, as American manufacturing became the envy of the world and Americans ended up relying on fellow Americans for most of the goods they purchased. This happy situation was brought to an end by our elites’ fatuous embrace […]

Robots are responsible for low wages, Trump and the Brexit

Robots are responsible for low wages, Trump and the Brexit

For decades, economic textbooks have highlighted the golden relationship between productivity and wages. As workers are able to produce more, employees reap the gains in the form of higher wages.

But this is no longer the case. View gallery . Wages and productivity climbed in lockstep between 1950 and 1980. However, there is a striking divergence between the 1980s and today. Even with the unemployment rate near multi-decade lows, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen highlighted concerns about the lack of wage growth and underemployment during her speech at Harvard last month.

“We’re close to an unemployment rate that I think most […]

Infosys, TCS and Wipro see a big jump in campus offers acceptance as jobs shrink with each passing year

Infosys, TCS and Wipro see a big jump in campus offers acceptance as jobs shrink with each passing year

At Wipro, job acceptance rates have risen to 85% from 65% three years ago, said an executive. Others said this mirrors the industry average of 80-85% now against 65-70% in FY12. BENGALURU: As the number of jobs in India’s $160-billion information technology industry starts shrinking with each passing year, engineering graduates across are scrambling for every vacancy in a sector that was once a big employment generator.

The percentage of fresh engineering graduates accepting campus offers from India’s largest software firms such as Tata Consultancy Services BSE -0.49 % , Infosys BSE -0.74 % and Wipro BSE 0.37 % has […]