Tag: employment

When Will Robots Take All the Jobs?

When Will Robots Take All the Jobs?

There is a contradiction in economic forecasting today that I’ve come to think of as the "robot paradox.” Some people seem confident that automation will take many workers’ jobs, yet they cannot point to evidence that technology has done anything in the last few years to replace work or add to productivity. Indeed, economic growth has been lackluster for the last few years, productivity growth is mysteriously moribund, and the last two years have been perhaps the best time this century for wage growth. This is not what the end of work looks like.

Since I have written repeatedly that […]

Smart Machines Will Eat Jobs–Except Where Smart People Create Them

Smart Machines Will Eat Jobs--Except Where Smart People Create Them

Automation will eat employment. That warning has been issued at every turn in history, with the printing press, the advent of electricity, and the rise of robotics. Phases of automation, and the new trade patterns and agreements that accompany them, destroy jobs that involve repetitive tasks while creating new jobs.

“No office job is safe,” said Sebastian Thrun , Stanford CS professor and MOOC pioneer. “Lots of lawyers, accountants, even surgeons will be automated away. Having spent my career watching the long, slow carnage of my own industry, I have some insight into how that will feel, and how to […]

Future jobs to be driven by digital tech: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Future jobs to be driven by digital tech: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Moreover, automation itself would create large job opportunities in the information technology (IT) space where there is likely to be an explosion of automation software development jobs, she said. HYDERABAD: Automation and digital technologies will drive jobs of the future even as they cannibalise conventional employment while creating a large number of new opportunities, says biotech entrepreneur Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw .

According to her, new age businesses like Uber, Ola, Amazon, Flipkart, Airbnb and Alibaba are creating millions of jobs which are several orders of magnitude higher than comparative conventional jobs.

Moreover, automation itself would create large job opportunities in the information […]

Robotics, driverless tech are taking over mining jobs

Robotics, driverless tech are taking over mining jobs

In the next decade, the mining industry may lose more than half of its jobs to automation, according to a new report. That’s not based on future technologies, but on automated equipment being deployed today.

The mining industry is primed for automation. It’s capital intensive, buys expensive equipment and pays relatively well.

This industry is adopting self-driving trucks, automated loaders and automated drilling and tunnel-boring systems. It is also testing fully autonomous long-distance trains, which carry materials from the mine to a port, according to the report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development in Winnipeg, Canada.A broader question is whether […]

Robot replaces man: Made in China 2025

Robot replaces man: Made in China 2025

by Boy Lüthje

China has become an important testing ground for an emerging paradigm of capitalist production that has been promoted under catchwords like intelligent manufacturing, digital production or industry 4.0. In 2015, the government presented a masterplan for China’s future manufacturing entitled “Made in China 2025”. Germany’s Industrie 4.0 strategy serves as a prominent point of reference. China’s plan proposes advanced automation, digital systems of factory management and large-scale deployment of robots, along with the development of an indigenous industry for advanced manufacturing equipment. There seem to be golden growth potentials for providers of robots, 3D printing, and […]

Will Logistics Provide a Good Career Path for Young Grads?

In this Presidential election cycle we saw surprising strength from both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the primaries. While the Presidential election is the nastiest in living memory, one thing it has made clear is that there are a lot of Americans who feel they have been left behind. They see an economy where the rich get richer and the middle class is being hollowed out. Both Trump and Sanders pointed to global trade as an important reason for this.

But the bigger reason for the loss of jobs is the growing power of automation. Martin Ford, in Rise […]

Vardi: Does automation doom the future of work?

Two schools of economists haggle over the ultimate impact of automation on employment.

The Neoclassicals soothe us with human resilience: jobs lost will eventually be balanced by new jobs found. The Neo-Luddites reply that technological advances have changed the rules, and many jobs will be lost forever.

“So, who is right? Nobody knows,” said Moshe Y. Vardi, the Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering at Rice University, who suggests we examine the past and present before drawing grand conclusions about the future.Vardi’s lecture, “Humans, Machines and Work: The Future is Now,” was sponsored by the Ken Kennedy Institute […]

Automation, the hitch in vows to bring back manufacturing?

Automation, the hitch in vows to bring back manufacturing?

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — In the 1960s, Lehigh Valley high school graduates had a lot of options.

Manufacturers such as Air Products, Ingersoll Rand and Bethlehem Steel offered well-paying jobs that promised a route to the middle class.

"You would expect to go get a job, get married, have kids, get a pension one day and everyone would be fat, dumb and happy," said Frank Behum, who worked at Bethlehem Steel for more than three decades before retiring in 1997, months before the company went under.Nothing really replaced those jobs. They required hard work under sometimes grueling conditions, but they paid […]

Robotics, driverless tech are taking over mining jobs

Robotics, driverless tech are taking over mining jobs

Coal is transported via conveyor belt to the coal-fired Jim Bridger Power Plant. The coal is supplied by a mine owned by PacifiCorp and the Idaho Power Company, outside Point of the Rocks, Wyoming. In the next decade, the mining industry may lose more than half of its jobs to automation, according to a new report. That’s not based on future technologies, but on automated equipment being deployed today.

The mining industry is primed for automation. It’s capital intensive, buys expensive equipment and pays relatively well.

This industry is adopting self-driving trucks, automated loaders and automated drilling and tunnel-boring systems. It […]

The delusion of improved skills

The delusion of improved skills

cartoon Everybody agrees that better education and improved skills, for as many people as possible, is crucial to increasing productivity and living standards and to tackling rising inequality. But what if everybody is wrong?
Most economists are certain that human capital is as important to productivity growth as physical capital. And to some degree, that’s obviously true. Modern economies would not be possible without widespread literacy and numeracy: many emerging economies are held back by inadequate skills.
But one striking feature of the modern economy is how few skilled people are needed to drive crucial areas of economic activity. […]