Tag: employment

Why Artificial Intelligence Will End the Need for Immigration

Why Artificial Intelligence Will End the Need for Immigration

When you think of a “developing country,” what type of nation comes to mind? Any number of Latin American, African, Middle Eastern, or Southeast Asian countries, probably. What makes them “developing”? Any number of socio-economic factors, including poor infrastructure, political corruption, conflict, ethnoreligious tension, poverty, high unemployment, and famine—to name a few. A “developed nation” has largely rid itself of these poor indicators.

Do we really want these “developing nations” ever to become developed? If so, then why does the United States—and the West more broadly—encourage and pursue policies that lead to “brain drain” from poorer, developing countries? Why do […]

Debunking 8 Myths About AI in the Workplace

Debunking 8 Myths About AI in the Workplace

The interplay between technology and work has always been a hot topic.

While technology has typically created more jobs than it has destroyed on a historical basis, this context rarely stops people from believing that things are “different” this time around.

In this case, it’s the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) that is being hotly debated by the media and expert commentators. Although there is no doubt that AI will be a transformative force in business, the recent attention on the subject has also led to many common misconceptions about the technology and its anticipated effects. Disproving Common Myths About […]

The definition of work is about to be permanently transformed

The definition of work is about to be permanently transformed

Rohinton Medhora is president at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Waterloo, Ont.

David Ossip is chairman and CEO at Ceridian, which is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn.

With the rapid digitization of numerous industries and many facets of our everyday lives, artificial intelligence and robotics are poised to transform the economy in a way similar to the industrial revolution. While these technologies will boost productivity, we should be concerned about their potential effect on the labour market. These effects have the potential to radically change the way of life for billions of people and should be […]

Airline pilots: Is there an actual shortage or are employers not paying enough?

How many pilots do you need up there in the friendly skies? Boeing recently projected that the airline industry will need almost 800,000 pilots over the next 20 years — about double the current workforce.

The problem is, though, that airlines are already facing something of a pilot shortage. One solution is to train more pilots, another is to decrease the need for pilots. Typically three or four pilots are needed for a long haul flight, but Airbus and Thales, a company that makes cockpit technology, think automation could reduce that number within the next five years.

Seth Kaplan, managing partner […]

Workforce Development

Workforce Development

Eakinomics: Workforce Development

Today the president is in Tampa for the latest in a series of events focused on workforce development , with a particular emphasis on “re-skilling” workers to take advantage of different opportunities in the labor market. Obviously, it is a good idea for workers to have the skills necessary to fill the jobs that are open in the modern labor market, which may involve changes in location, occupation, and sector of the economy. Workers, firms, and governments all have various interests in successful re-skilling (see the discussion by the Council of Economic Advisers). Yet this feels […]

Why AI stealing our jobs may be a blessing in disguise – if we can rethink what meaningful work is

Why AI stealing our jobs may be a blessing in disguise – if we can rethink what meaningful work is

A worker faces an iPal robot, created by AvatarMind, at an assembly plant in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China, on July 4. Designed to offer education, care and companionship to children and the elderly, the 3.5-feet tall humanoid robots come in two genders and can tell stories, take photos and deliver educational or promotional content. Photo: Reuters In a test conducted by investment firm Loup Ventures, Google Assistant was able to answer the most questions correctly From steam engines to computers, new technologies that emerged from past industrial revolutions stimulated new demand, boosted economic growth and eventually created more jobs […]

Is Automation Labor-Displacing? Productivity Growth, Employment, and the Labor Share

Many technological innovations replace workers with machines, but this capital-labor substitution need not reduce aggregate labor demand because it simultaneously induces four countervailing responses: own-industry output effects; cross-industry input–output effects; between-industry shifts; and final demand effects. We quantify these channels using four decades of harmonized cross-country and industry data, where we measure automation as industry-level movements in total factor productivity (TFP) that are common across countries. We find that automation displaces employment and reduces labor’s share of value-added in the industries in which it originates (a direct effect). In the case of employment, these own-industry losses are reversed by […]

AFR Innovation Summit: Business prepares for wave of AI

Michaelia Cash, Minister for Jobs & Innovation, says Australia can handle the coming tech wave. James Thomson AFR Woodcut Jobs and Innovation Minister Michaelia Cash says Australia can manage the rise of automation and artificial intelligence without a spike in unemployment, despite concerns the local business sector is well behind foreign competitors in preparing for these trends.

Statistics suggest as many as 3.5 million jobs could be affected by AI by 2030, with research from the IMF suggesting the lowest-skilled workers will be hit hardest.

Data released at The Australian Financial Review Innovation Summit on Monday by MYOB chief executive Tim […]

Is yours a ‘bullshit job’? This book will tell you if it is, as it points to a paradox of capitalism

Is yours a ‘bullshit job’? This book will tell you if it is, as it points to a paradox of capitalism

Screenshot/Vimeo Amidst the current debate over the benefits and dangers of automation, one has to recall what Karl Marx had said almost two hundred years ago, in an era when machines, just like today, were threatening to take over millions of jobs. In his analysis of capitalism, Marx found that the value of a commodity, which he called exchange value, was primarily generated by a prior commodification of living human labour. It is living labour, Marx found, which primarily generates value.

Machines might be better at producing and manufacturing objects, but it is living labour which produces the value that […]

John McDonald: Automation won’t take our jobs unless we let it

John McDonald: Automation won’t take our jobs unless we let it

It seems every week there’s a new article about how artificial intelligence and automation can more efficiently complete manual tasks. The McKinsey Institute predicts that 39 million to 73 million jobs—nearly one third of the U.S. workforce—will be automated by 2030.

Alone, with no context, this statistic becomes quite daunting. Why are we inventing ourselves out of work?

But it’s important to remember that automation and unemployment are not synonymous. We can use these advancements, combined with human creative power, to make better work environments, products and services without resulting in a total overhaul of the known employment demographics.Instead of a […]