Tag: employment

The Next Industrial Revolution

The Next Industrial Revolution

A “crisis of abundance” initially seems like a paradox. After all, abundance is the ultimate goal of technology and economics. But consider the early history of the electric washing machine. In the 1920s, factories churned them out in droves. (With the average output of manufacturing workers rising by a third between 1923 and 1929, making more washing machines was relatively cheap.) But as the decade ended, factories saw they were making many more than American households demanded. Companies cut back their output and laid off workers even before the stock market crashed in 1929. Indeed, some economists have said […]

Robots are after our jobs: what can we do?

Robots are after our jobs: what can we do?

Photo: The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images Will smart automation, intelligent software bots and brainy robots take away our jobs anytime soon?

Pose this question to any Indian working in a company where unions are strong, or to any Indian who has a government job, or to the majority of Indians who work in the unorganized sector—those who drive taxis, trucks pull handcarts, hawk goods on footpaths or are employed as maids—and you will, in all probability, be looked at askance or even dismissed as an uninformed prophet of doom.

The reaction may not be surprising in emerging countries like India, […]

Brunell: China betting on advanced robots

Brunell: China betting on advanced robots

Don Brunell China has a new industrial strategy which is capturing attention worldwide. It is striving to become an innovation economy using advanced automation, connected robots and artificial intelligence.

China intends to shake the image of just being a nation for low-cost manufacturing. Instead, it wants to be known for producing cutting-edge, reliable and high-quality products — even making robots.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, the Chinese are creating an “industrial internet” which gathers information and uses it across manufacturing networks, including suppliers and customers.Their robots are connected systems with advanced sensors, sophisticated software and actuators (devices which can […]

Labor Day 2016: More Automation, More Foreign Workers, Fewer Jobs for Americans

Labor Day 2016: More Automation, More Foreign Workers, Fewer Jobs for Americans

Labor Day is becoming a time of dismal reflection as automation technology continues its incursion into new places in the jobs economy. For example, self-driving taxis were rolled out for public testing in Singapore and Pittsburgh in August. A robot security guard was sighted in a San Francisco parking lot earlier in the summer. In California, the new $15 minimum wage has pushed fast food restaurants to replace counter workers with ordering kiosks . It was reported a few days ago that Walmart is cutting hundreds of accounting and invoicing jobs , which sounds like a software upgrade or […]

Lack of skilled labor threatens manufacturing

Lack of skilled labor threatens manufacturing

During the 2016 primary election, several presidential candidates repeatedly lamented the loss of American manufacturing jobs. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump built their populist economic platforms around the issue, soon followed by other candidates and members of Congress. None of the rhetoric explains manufacturing as an industry or the entire economy.

Over the last 20 years, low-skilled manufacturing jobs have vanished from the U.S. while high skilled jobs flourish. The central political narrative is that jobs are primarily lost to overseas competitors.

While this may be anecdotally true, low-skilled manufacturing jobs disappeared primarily as the result of automation — which, ironically, […]

Clinton, Trump and Obama aren’t telling American workers the truth. Here it is

Clinton, Trump and Obama aren't telling American workers the truth. Here it is

Labor Day is the one day every year when we come together as a nation to celebrate the achievements of the American worker and the history of the labor movement in this country. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will join President Obama (who spent the weekend meeting with G20 leaders issued a Labor Day message on September 1) as well as a variety of politicians and public officials from across the country, in commemorating the day.

You can bet that their lofty rhetoric will be accompanied by a promise to restore the nation to its manufacturing heyday.

At the Democratic Convention […]

The future of automation and your job

The future of automation and your job

Buy Photo Imagine it’s 2030, and it’s nearing time to eat dinner.

You text a grocery store where your order is taken for a pound of ground beef, a box of Hamburger Helper and maybe some lettuce and tomatoes for a salad. Possibly you want to fancy it up with a bottle of cabernet. The beef was butchered and packaged by a machine. Robots picked and processed the grapes, which where then bottled and shipped to a market by automation.

A driverless car, or possibly a drone aircraft, delivers the goods to your front door. You never see a person from […]

We Need To Talk About Tomorrow’s World

We Need To Talk About Tomorrow’s World

Bloomberg via Getty Images Every time I visit my local supermarket I see a minor change, maybe not noticeable to many, but definitely there. What started with a few automatic tills at one end of the aisles has grown to over half the store in length. This presumably means every time I visit less people are employed at the supermarket.

For me this is the most graphic representation of not just where our economy is changing now but how it will develop over the next 20 years, with the most pessimistic estimates claiming that half of all jobs could be […]

The new technology revolution – impact on SL

The new technology revolution - impact on SL

( Continued from yesterday )

By C.R. de Silva,
Retired World Bank Official
Artificial Intelligence (AI) -The Second Machine Age is Here.The Nobel Prize winner in behavioural economics Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking Fast and Slow, believes that robots will actually replace CEOs, which is well beyond the limits of manual or physical labour. His view is that there is no concrete evidence that expert human cognition does better than intelligently constructed formulas, meaning algorithms conjoined with artificial intelligence(AI) to create good business judgement. So, what is AI ? It is the invention and deployment to actual situations of intelligent or […]

Chris Christie’s Minimum Wage Veto Was Based On Right-Wing Media Myths

Chris Christie’s Minimum Wage Veto Was Based On Right-Wing Media Myths

Christie Blocks New Jersey From Becoming Third State To Raise Wages To $15 Per Hour

Gov. Christie Vetoes Minimum Wage Increase Claiming It Would Hurt Businesses. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) announced he would veto legislation raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour in an August 30 statement, claiming businesses could not handle the wage increase. New Jersey’s legislature approved a bill in June that would gradually lift the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2021, making it the third state to raise wages to that level after California and neighboring New York: New Jersey Governor Chris […]