Tag: employment

Jobs that are disappearing in the near future

Jobs that are disappearing in the near future

Join AFP’s 100,000+ followers on Facebook

Purchase a subscription to AFP | Subscribe to AFP podcasts on iTunes

News, press releases, letters to the editor: augustafreepress2@gmail.com Advertising inquiries: freepress@ntelos.net Photo Credit: Svetlana Did you know there are currently over 7 million available job openings in the United States? However, in the near future, a substantial number of those jobs may become obsolete as technology continues to advance. Machines are becoming increasingly able to perform tasks that once could only be done by humans. As a result, our new economy is beginning to see certain jobs vanish from the marketplace […]

Mining employment returns to boom-time footing

Not quite deja vu all over again

That is a level not seen since the end of the original investment boom triggered by China’s compounding embrace of seaborne raw materials markets from 2005.

When that once-in-a-century expansion in mining sector capacity began local miners directly employed an estimated 113,000 people. By the time the boom exhausted itself in 2012, 274,000 Australians were employed by miners. As AMMA noted, through that hectic seven-year stretch, workforce demand in the mining business grew by 20 per cent annually.The resulting cost inflation – particularly in the heavy equipment, engineering and contract construction sectors – […]

MIT Future of Work Report: We Shouldn’t Worry About Quantity of Jobs, But Quality

MIT Future of Work Report: We Shouldn’t Worry About Quantity of Jobs, But Quality

Robots aren’t going to take everyone’s jobs , but technology has already reshaped the world of work in ways that are creating clear winners and losers. And it will continue to do so without intervention, says the first report of MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future.

The supergroup of MIT academics was set up by MIT President Rafael Reif in early 2018 to investigate how emerging technologies will impact employment and devise strategies to steer developments in a positive direction. And the headline finding from their first publication is that it’s not the quantity of jobs we […]

As automation swallows the world of work, will we restrain the robots to protect the dignity of labour?

As automation swallows the world of work, will we restrain the robots to protect the dignity of labour?

What is the point of economic activity? Well, the most obvious reason people start and run companies or work for them is to make a living. But there are other, subtler reasons we trade effort and time for money. It gives us a sense of purpose, achievement, independence, and our jobs are often a big part of our identity.

Could we not derive those benefits from a challenging hobby – mountain climbing maybe? To an extent. But to quote Virginia Woolf, money dignifies what is frivolous if unpaid for. Of course, there is also purpose and dignity in staying at […]

How automation can create jobs

A primary topic of discussion as technological change moves ever faster, is what effect automation will have on jobs. Thanks to the phenomenal recent advances in artificial intelligence and robotics, it is certain that the future job market will be different from that of today.

The only question is precisely how it will differ, writes Dr Cobus Oosthuizen, Dean of Milpark Business School.

Historically, technology has always resulted in the creation of new jobs and new industries, with the numbers of newly created jobs generally outweighing the numbers of jobs lost. It’s important to remember that technological development plays a fundamental […]

The quantum shift

The quantum shift

I It’s ironic, isn’t it? People can’t live without food and beverages, and yet food and beverages can’t be produced without people. It’s a codependent relationship of existential proportions.

As far as industries go, our $131 billion food- and grocery-processing sector provides the essentials and makes up a massive part of the FMCG supply chains we rely on to feed, clothe and entertain us.

The FMCG industries, of which the F&B sector is the foundation, have experienced a quantum shift. They have rapidly evolved to meet consumer demands, and are now the leading manufacturing industry in Australia and New Zealand.Likewise, enterprise […]

5 Questions We Should Be Asking About Automation and Jobs

5 Questions We Should Be Asking About Automation and Jobs

We simply don’t know for sure whether automation, algorithms, and AI will ultimately create more jobs than they destroy. Opinions are all over the map. One widely cited study predicted 47% of jobs will be automated, and technological change has in fact contributed to declining employment in recent years. Some are already preparing for a world without work.

But automation has been going on for centuries, and jobs still exist : that’s because automation replaces some kinds of human labor while boosting demand for others. Furthermore, job upheaval today is relatively modest. The mix of jobs in the economy is […]

Socialism and the Self-Checkout Machine

Socialism and the Self-Checkout Machine

Shoppers head toward the self-checkout lanes at Fred Meyer. (Flickr) This month, union activists in Oregon turned in the first batch of signatures to get the Grocery Store Service and Community Protection Act on the ballot for 2020. The Act would limit grocery stores to a maximum of two self-checkout lanes at a time.

Oregon ALF-CIO president Tom Chamberlain issued a statement explaining his motivations for supporting the Act: The widescale use of self-checkout machines in our state’s grocery stores is part of a deliberate corporate strategy that relies on automation to reduce labor costs and eliminate jobs. It disproportionately […]

The Technology Trap: Capital, Labour and Power in the Age of Automation – Book Review

The Technology Trap: Capital, Labour and Power in the Age of Automation – Book Review

The Technology Trap: Capital, Labour and Power in the Age of Automation . Carl Benedikt Frey. Princeton University Press. 2019.

It seems that barely a month can pass without new forecasts of technology-induced job losses hitting the front pages. The Office for National Statistics are at it , Deloitte , PricewaterhouseCoopers , the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); the World Bank even dedicated their most recent World Development Report to the future of work. Fittingly, it was Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne who turbo-charged the automation debate back in 2013 when their paper estimated that […]

WILFORD: Bill De Blasio Has A Plan — To Tax Robotic Workers

WILFORD: Bill De Blasio Has A Plan — To Tax Robotic Workers

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio speaks during the first night of the Democratic presidential debate on June 26, 2019 (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Attempting to save his flailing presidential candidacy, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan to tax businesses for automating jobs, calling it a “robot tax.” Ironically, the plan would hurt the workers that de Blasio aims to help.

De Blasio’s plan would involve establishing a tax on businesses that replace human jobs with automation in the form of five years’ worth of payroll taxes for the jobs eliminated. The revenue raised from this […]