Tag: employment

Populism is thriving as losers to the robot revolution demand radical change: Carl Benedikt Frey

Populism is thriving as losers to the robot revolution demand radical change: Carl Benedikt Frey

The mainstream political parties have largely neglected these losers, mostly lowskilled working class. The populists are tapping into their anger, says Frey.

The urban-rural divide that we see today, also in India, is likely to be exacerbated because new jobs mostly emerge in cities with skilled populations, says Frey. The rise of right-wing leaders has been a recurring theme of recent times. Is it linked to the emerging economic situation, especially the growing inequality and the hollowing out of middle-class jobs amid a wave of tech-led disruptions? Carl Benedikt Frey, co-director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and […]

Job-seekers crushed in a vice

Job-seekers crushed in a vice

Democrat Gov. Ned Lamont signed a bill this week raising the state’s minimum wage in stages to $15 an hour, making Connecticut the latest state to succumb to the “Fight for $15” movement that’s sweeping the country. The signing took place in a celebratory atmosphere in Hartford, where invited guests included minimum-wage workers who shared their financial hardship stories with the media.

The celebration may be short-lived for some workers.

Supporters of raising the minimum wage insisted it would have no negative effects on employment. Some even argued it would increase employment by increasing demand, because poorer people are more likely […]

The AI gig economy is coming for you

The AI gig economy is coming for you

Mary Gray On Wednesday, the Guardian published an article about the realities of producing Google Assistant. Behind the “magic” of its ability to interpret 26 languages is a huge team of linguists, working as subcontractors, who must tediously label the training data for it to work. They earn low wages and are routinely forced to work unpaid overtime. Their concerns over working conditions have been repeatedly dismissed.

It’s just one story among dozens that have begun to peel back the curtain on how the artificial-intelligence industry operates. Human workers don’t just label the data that makes AI work. Sometimes humans […]

Automation vs jobs – 5 questions everyone should look at and ask!

Automation vs jobs – 5 questions everyone should look at and ask!

Everywhere is the fear of large-scale automation leading to mass unemployment and insecurity. We are at the cusp of major technological change, drastically changing the nature of jobs, leaving masses of people unemployed and worsening economic inequality.

According to a 2013 study by Oxford University researchers, 47 percent of U.S. employees are at risk of automation, while a 2017 McKinsey Global Institute report claims that one-third of U.S. workers will be displaced by imminent automation from their current jobs. Other reports offer tamer prospects, with a recent OCDE report (2018) finding that only 9% of U.S. jobs are “highly automatable.” […]

Sean Smith: Business needs to be honest about automation pros and cons

Sean Smith: Business needs to be honest about automation pros and cons

The latest trend in robotics and AI on display at this year’s International Conference on Robotics and Automation isn’t looking ahead to science fiction scenarios, but revolves around the fine-tuning of existing tech. If it can’t sell a vision for “the Workforce of the Future”, can business really be surprised that workers aren’t buying it.

Automation, artificial intelligence, digital technologies and analytics are inevitably changing the way humans work and interact while making companies more productive and profitable.

The expected impact of the changes are so significant that they are deemed to represent a Fourth Industrial Revolution.It is natural that such […]

Automation isn’t about giving in to the robots

Automation isn’t about giving in to the robots

Future workplaces still need those high skill jobs credentials to make it happen Image Credit: Hugo A. Sanchez/©Gulf News We’ve all heard the warnings of an impending dystopian future.

According to Deloitte, an estimated 35 per cent of UK jobs are at high risk of automation in the next 10 to 20 years, while in the past 15 years technology already contributed to the loss of over 800,000 jobs. Market research firm Forrester predicts 6 per cent of US jobs will be lost to robots and automation by 2021, with the main losses being felt in transportation, logistics, customer services, […]

Artificial intelligence, the future of work, and inequality

Artificial intelligence, the future of work, and inequality

Figure 1: Gross Domestic Product in five countries, 1000-2015. Source: The CORE-Econ Project. Credit: Colorado State University One of the most spectacular facts of the last two centuries of economic history is the exponential growth in GDP per capita in most of the world. Figure 1 shows the rise (and the difference) in living standards for five countries since 1000 AD.

This economic progress, unprecedented in human history, would be impossible without major breakthroughs in technology. The economic historian Joel Mokyr has argued that the Enlightenment in Britain brought new ways to transfer scientific discoveries into practical tools for engineers […]

Facing The Unknown Future Of Work As AI Changes The Rules Of Business

Facing The Unknown Future Of Work As AI Changes The Rules Of Business

Even as we read about the first layoffs blamed at least in part on automation, there is still cause for optimism. While easily automated jobs may fall by the wayside, it’s important to remember that new jobs managing and leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) technology are being created.

Titles like edge computing release manager, edge stream researcher and AI analytics executive did not exist until very recently. Earlier this year, I hired a vice president of AI and robotic process automation. How many of us thought even ten years ago that a role like this would be so central for business […]

Will Technology Cause Massive Unemployment? The Lessons of History

Will Technology Cause Massive Unemployment? The Lessons of History

“Experience keeps a dear school, yet fools will learn in no other.” — Ben Franklin

I must be some kind of fool because I’ve learned a lot from history and my own experiences on Wall Street over the past 50 years.

For example, I’ve learned to be skeptical of claims that automation and technology will cause massive unemployment. Yes, computers will replace jobs, but they also will create new jobs.I remember reading an article in U.S. News & World Report in the 1960s about how “Automation Will Destroy Jobs.” Yet, new technology ended up creating more new forms of employment […]

The future of work: Being a cashier is Maryland’s most common occupation, but it’s vanishing

The future of work: Being a cashier is Maryland's most common occupation, but it's vanishing

Technological advances could leave Maryland cashier’s jobless. (Karl Merton Ferron / Baltimore Sun) Lester Watson began ringing up customers some 40 years ago at a five and dime store before he landed a job at Hutzler’s, the longtime Baltimore department store. He wrote up sales tickets by hand at first, calculating how much, with taxes, a customer owed. Later, he punched numbered keys on a cash register that did the math for him.

Now, the 59-year-old cashier works at Graul’s Market in Ruxton, all but teaching a master class in customer service. As he scans product codes into what’s now […]