Tag: inequality

Legislation must catch up with ‘huge shift in nature of work’

Legislation must catch up with ‘huge shift in nature of work’

The government needs to produce new employment legislation, policy and practice to accommodate the ‘hybrid reality of today’s workplace,’ according to a House of Lords inquiry.

The Lords’ Covid-19 Committee report, Beyond Digital: Planning for a Hybrid World stated that our growing reliance on digital technology is causing significant changes in the nature of our relationship with our employers. It added that the growth of platform working, digital monitoring and “epresenteeism” posed a significant risk for people’s wellbeing in work.

To deal with changes to our working conditions, and the relationship between employee and employer, the Lords stated “the government […]

How Can We Ensure Humans Flourish in an Age of Robots?

How Can We Ensure Humans Flourish in an Age of Robots?

Technology The pandemic has accelerated the update of automation in many areas of work. Robotic process automation, or RPA, is rapidly replacing a lot of white collar activities, while AI is starting to be used in supervisory positions.

In his new book, FutureProof, 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation , the New York Times’s technology correspondent Kevin Roose argues that there is a risk of the workplace becoming dehumanized by automation and that we need to think carefully about what we automate.

ROOSE: The pandemic has really had a significant effect on accelerating the deployment […]

PAUL KRUGMAN: Do the math

PAUL KRUGMAN: Do the math

Will Andrew Yang, the current front-runner, become New York City’s next mayor? If he wins, would he be any good at the job? I have no idea, although I’m skeptical about the latter.

My guess is that the mayoral office needs an effective political brawler, not an intellectual, and Yang, who has never held office, owes his prominence largely to his reputation as a thought leader, with big ideas about economics and policy.

I do know that Yang’s big ideas are demonstrably wrong. Shouldn’t that be cause for concern?Yang’s claim to fame is his argument that we’re facing social and economic […]

Defeating the Inequality Disease Must Become a Global Rallying Call

The effects are split by gender and race. In the United States, just as in the rest of the world, frontline jobs are heavily staffed by women , who are among the lower paid. They are also more likely to have been laid off or left the workforce. People of color face higher unemployment rates, are more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19, and are less able to telework.

This level of inequality is unsustainable and immoral. It is a virus of its own, one that cannot be cured by a vaccine or wearing a mask. What’s more, it is […]

AI and productivity

AI and productivity

May 2021 | COVER STORY | BOARDROOM INTELLIGENCE

Financier Worldwide Magazine As new innovations propel artificial intelligence (AI) forward, great strides are being made to improve efficiency, performance and productivity across industries.

The global AI market has rocketed in recent years. According to UBS, the AI industry was a $5bn marketplace by revenue in 2015 and expected to see a 20 percent annual growth rate reaching $12.5bn by 2020. By 2025, the size of the AI software market is forecast reach $126bn, according to LearnBonds.McKinsey Global Institute reckons AI techniques could create between $3.5 and $5.8 trillion in value annually […]

America Needs to Empower Workers Again

America Needs to Empower Workers Again

Labor activists hoped that the unionization vote at Amazon’s Bessemer, Ala., warehouse would be a turning point, a reversal in the decades-long trend of union decline. What the vote showed, instead, was the continuing effectiveness of the tactics employers have repeatedly used to defeat organizing efforts.

But union advocates shouldn’t give up. The political environment that gave anti-union employers a free hand may be changing — the decline of unionization was, above all, political, not a necessary consequence of a changing economy. And America needs a union revival if we’re to have any hope of reversing spiraling inequality.

Let’s start by […]

Tech Hubs May Emerge From Covid Richer Than Ever

Tech Hubs May Emerge From Covid Richer Than Ever

New York’s prospects look good. Americans are rapidly ramping up their protection against Covid-19. The 7-day average of daily vaccinations in the U.S. reached more than 3 million at the beginning of this month — about 1% of the nation’s population each day. Despite the recent upticks in cases and positivity rates, we are now in a position where we can begin to envision a near-future not centered on the pandemic. What might that mean for U.S. cities and metropolitan economies?

On the one hand, going by the example of the 1918 flu pandemic, we might expect those cities that […]

Automation is expanding. How worried should we be about jobs?

Automation is expanding. How worried should we be about jobs?

A few days ago I was having network problems with the WiFi in my home office — my connection was very slow and video conferences were freezing. After fussing with the mesh network extenders with no result, I called the cable provider. Normally, this involves having to navigate several automated voice response menus before a call center representative comes on the line to help. I explain the problem and they then run a remote diagnostic and usually suggest a cable modem reset. Often, that solves the problem.

But in my latest attempt to get back online, the menus had changed […]

Cancel work: The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that work is not a virtue

Cancel work: The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that work is not a virtue

Several years ago, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released an overview of the Green New Deal that mentioned guaranteeing "economic security" for people who are "unable or unwilling to work." When conservative critics noticed those last three words, they pounced. Fox News waxed poetic about the "dignity of work" and Breitbart sneered at the "self-described Democratic Socialist" whose "radical proposal" ignored that even "traditional American liberalism regarded full employment as its goal because of the importance of work to society and the individual."

Indeed, there is a deep-seated belief in American society that one’s survival is tied to work — and, thus, those […]

The future of work is already here, but how fair is it?

The future of work is already here, but how fair is it?

In 2003, the cyber fiction writer William Gibson coined the intriguing phrase; “The future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed” .

When it comes to the workplace, this statement most certainly holds true. There is so much to be excited about as technology continues to evolve and be integrated into our workplaces: whether it be the ever-expanding capabilities of robotics, the rise of artificial intelligence, or the introduction of other intelligent technologies. But as with any great societal change, opportunity for some spells uncertainty for others. The integration of automation in organisations will undoubtedly bring productivity benefits, […]