Tag: consumption

World Bank recommends fewer regulations protecting workers

World Bank recommends fewer regulations protecting workers

The World Bank is proposing lower minimum wages and greater hiring and firing powers for employers as part of a wide-ranging deregulation of labour markets deemed necessary to prepare countries for the changing nature of work.

A working draft of the bank’s flagship World Development Report – which will urge policy action from governments when it comes out in the autumn – says less “burdensome” regulations are needed so that firms can hire workers at lower cost. The controversial recommendations, which are aimed mainly at developing countries, have alarmed groups representing labour, which say they have so far been frozen […]

Guest Post — Perspectives on Automation and Employment

Guest Post -- Perspectives on Automation and Employment

Automation will have a global impact like nothing else we have ever seen. This is not to say that it is altogether a new idea. Decades ago, science minded dreamers from around the globe would paint philosophical dreamscapes that relayed a world built on the backs of human ingenuity. Starting in the early 20th century, automation introduced itself to the world in the form of massive materials factories that could speed up the productivity of workers and create form perfect products for mass consumption. These behemoths of the old world have become standard and ingrained into our minds […]

When technology takes over jobs

HARARE – The old photographer, with an incredible little mop of fringe, grey-white hair around his balding, mottled scalp sits solo on a bench in the vast Harare Gardens Park.

He has the resigned look of one who knows that at his age life has stopped giving and only takes away.

But the rate at which life has been taking away even his profession of over four decades has been merciless and brutal.“Photography does not pay any more these days. These new technologies have taken our professions away,” he says, referring to how new technological advancements have ruined his otherwise lucrative […]

Laboratory Grown Meat

Aim

Process

FocusThis Summer Research Scholarship was dedicated to analysing what the public sector could look like in 2035, in order for the IRD and related agencies to plan and prepare.To identify what the public sector could look like in 2035, things that had the capacity to change the public landscape (i.e. drivers of change) were identified and researched. Nine key drivers were analysed. The most significant driver and topic of this poster was Disruptive Technology. Two questions were asked of the research: Firstly, what is happening with this driver? And more specifically, so what does this mean for the IRD […]

Watching Washington, April 2018: Steep tariffs harm rails, wallets

Watching Washington, April 2018: Steep tariffs harm rails, wallets

Capitol Hill Contributing Editor Frank N. Wilner Debates rage over the wisdom of steeper tariffs on U.S. imports and/or withdrawing from global trade pacts in hopes of protecting domestic industry and jobs. History teaches such actions pose economic and national security risks.

Consider the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff imposing steep imposts on some 20,000 imported goods. Consensus among economists and historians is that a resulting global trade war deepened and lengthened our Great Depression (retaliatory tariffs reduced American exports by 61%) and contributed to the rise of Nazi Germany by intensifying nationalist animosities.

Here are how the benefits of global trade […]

Automation vs. jobs and human contact

Automation vs. jobs and human contact

Igor Faletski is CEO of Mobify, a Vancouver company working on mobile technology. In the future of retail, it is likely that bricks-and-mortar stores and online commerce will merge into a seamless and convenient entity, says Vancouver tech entrepreneur Igor Faletski.

As CEO of the Vancouver-based online-commerce platform Mobify, Faletski has had a front-row view of the trend toward using technology to create a “frictionless transaction” that maximizes convenience for consumers while minimizing the amount of time they spend waiting in line.

“The days of a retail store as a place where you have inventory, you sell it and take money […]

Haunting Photos Depict the Hardships of Global Labor

With powerful images of workers from around the world, the exhibition Labor & Materials explores the evolution of work and industry in the 21st century. In art ranging from collage to photographs, the show examines how the scale and speed of technology impacts the production of goods and services. Its goal is to lift the veil on the inequalities that exist around the world in the production of modern conveniences like smartphones and computers.

The art featured in this multimedia exhibition hint at the contradictions of modernity and its expected efficiencies. And they raise the question, “At whose expense?” Through […]

Trump’s deplorable vision for US steel industry

Trump's deplorable vision for US steel industry

When US President Donald Trump met executives from US steel and aluminum industries last Thursday to announce his tariffs on imports, he said "we’re going to build our steel industry back and we’re going to build our aluminum industry back".

"I remember when I was growing up, US Steel, that was the ultimate company. And today, you have so many closed plants," said Trump, with David Burritt, president and chief executive officer of the US Steel sitting next to him.

Trump was right. US Steel, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was once the largest steel producer and the largest corporation in the […]

Saanich seniors pack a powerful demographic punch

Saanich seniors pack a powerful demographic punch

According to the latest census, Saanich is home to 23,715 people 65 years and older – about 20.7 per cent of the total population. (Saanich News file photo) By many measures, today’s seniors live longer, wealthier and healthier lives than seniors at any other time in history.

Consider the numbers. In 1921, life expectancy for Canadian men at birth was 58.8 years, for women, 60.6 years, according to Statistics Canada. Fifty years later, life expectancy for men had risen to 69.4 years, for women to 76.5 years. In 2017, life expectancy for men had reached 79 years, for women 83. […]

Outlook for Trucking is Stellar, ATA Economist Says

Outlook for Trucking is Stellar, ATA Economist Says

The trucking industry is seeing the best economic climate since deregulation, according to Bob Costello, chief economist and senior vice president of the American Trucking Associations.

Speaking at the opening session of Omnitracs’ Outlook 2018 user conference in Nashville on Feb. 26, Costello said the trucking industry should face smooth sailing over the next year or two. “This is a growing environment,” he said, noting that the economy is in its third-longest expansion in history— which is on track to becoming the second-longest by springtime. From a macroeconomic view, the two key drivers are productivity and population growth, he said, […]