Tag: inequality

Pensions – Articles – SPA debate may be irrelevant if AI predictions play out

Ahead of the conference Better Futures, which will debate challenges presented by an ageing society, the rise of AI and a lack of savings, Hymans Robertson has looked at the implications for the State pension if predictions about the impact AI will have on jobs and UK GDP play out. Many argue that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is set to change society and the economic landscape beyond recognition. Commenting, Calum Cooper, Partner at Hymans Robertson, said: “There are many predictions about the impact the rise of Artificial Intelligence will have in the future. While we can’t be certain about […]

How artificial intelligence can define not destroy the future of work

How artificial intelligence can define not destroy the future of work

Artificial intelligence is going to change the work of millions, but it doesn’t have to mean the robot-led devastation that many are fearing. Shutterstock.com by Daniel Darling

Work is a defining feature of our civilisation. We spend more time in our jobs than any other activity and the spoils of our labour provide us the means to survive. It gives identity, status and purpose.

So we can be forgiven if we get nervous when our jobs are threatened. And there has never been a clearer threat than increasing automation through robotics and AI. I am of the camp that ultimately, in […]

Amazon Warehouse Employees Are The Most Important Workers in America

Amazon Warehouse Employees Are The Most Important Workers in America

The future is not completely unpredictable. Many of the most powerful economic and political trends in this country can be found inside an Amazon warehouse. And what happens to the workers there will say a lot about our collective future.

Our nation—as it often has throughout modern history—is experiencing a diffuse sense that our future is uncertain, that our economic prospects are unstable, and that the material success experienced by past generations may become impossible to attain for future generations. The fabled “economic anxiety” afflicting millions of us with a vague sense of dread is real enough. This, despite the […]

The Global Search for Education: Jobsolescence – A Conversation with USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson

The Global Search for Education: Jobsolescence – A Conversation with USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson

“I think the guiding principle for government should be to protect and enable/retrain the worker, not protect the job. Policy makers and educators should focus on making sure that workers are as equipped as possible to transition to new opportunities…”

— Peter Robinson

A recent OECD report finds that low and middle income earners have seen their wages stagnate and that the income share of middle-skilled jobs has fallen. Rising inequality has led to concerns that top earners are getting a disproportionate share of the gains from global “openness and interconnection”. This summer, the OECD Employment Outlook 2017 […]

Invasion of the job snatchers? Use of robots in workplace on the rise

Invasion of the job snatchers? Use of robots in workplace on the rise

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It’s only about 50 feet to the shipping station, but if employees at Cochlear Americas had to walk each order back and forth, they would work longer days.

They used to do the walk. That was before “Morty,” the autonomous-moving cart, joined the hearing-implant company in Centennial in January. Morty — also called Robbie or Suzy, depending on which Cochlear employee you ask — maneuvers between workstations, curious visitors and unidentified objects as it thoughtfully takes packages between workstations to the shipping area all day long. […]

The Meaning of Work in a Sustainable Society

The Meaning of Work in a Sustainable Society

Employees of the workers’ cooperative Scop-Ti at the their factory in Gemenos, southern France. The workers’ cooperative took over the factory, formerly Fralib Gemenos, after struggling nearly four years with the multinational Unilver to prevent the relocation of the factory. John Bellamy Foster is the editor of Monthly Review . His latest book is Trump in the White House: Tragedy and Farce , forthcoming from Monthly Review Press.

This article is a revised version of “ The Meaning of Work in a Sustainable Society: A Marxian View ,” published in March 2017 by the Center for the Understanding of Sustainable […]

Jobs at stake in B.C.’s minimum-wage hikes, critics say

Jobs at stake in B.C.’s minimum-wage hikes, critics say

Increase targets workers reliant on minimum wage, but trade-off could be lower demand for young workers and tighter margins for small businesses B.C.’s minimum wage is set to increase to $15 by 2021, a move that is being praised as overdue by some, though restaurant-sector leaders fear that the hike is being implemented too quickly | Sorbis/Shutterstock B.C.’s plan to raise the province’s hourly minimum wage to $15 by 2021 will benefit some workers but will also reduce demand for young workers, increase prices and squeeze margins for small businesses, especially in the food services sector, experts say.

The B.C. […]

Is catastrophe the only cure for inequality?

Is catastrophe the only cure for inequality?

Author Walter Scheidel explains why violence is “the great leveller”.

Inequality, authors of the left usually argue, is not inevitable. The gap between the rich and the poor was made by man and can be undone by man. But Walter Scheidel’s recent book on the subject, The Great Leveller , ends on a sobering note: “All of us who prize economic equality would do well to remember that with the rarest of exceptions, it was only ever brought forth in sorrow.”

In his 528-page study of inequality “from the Stone Age to the 21st century”, the Stanford historian finds that significant […]

Driverless lorries could mean 600,000 lost jobs. It’s time we took a universal basic income seriously.

Driverless lorries could mean 600,000 lost jobs. It’s time we took a universal basic income seriously.

With trials for self-driving commercial lorries to take place in the UK within the next twelve months, the work days of thousands of Britain’s long-haul drivers may soon be numbered.

Of course, these are only preliminary tests – it may well be a decade or more before driverless deliveries and long-distance haulage are an everyday reality. However, with the beginnings already upon us, a boom in automated jobs is surely coming sooner rather than later.

Driverless haulage lorries are just the latest in a range of technological upgrades to manual jobs. From driverless taxis , and Amazon’s long-awaited drone deliveries, to […]

Driverless lorries could mean 600,000 lost jobs. It’s time we took a universal basic income seriously.

Driverless lorries could mean 600,000 lost jobs. It’s time we took a universal basic income seriously.

With trials for self-driving commercial lorries to take place in the UK within the next twelve months, the work days of thousands of Britain’s long-haul drivers may soon be numbered.

Of course, these are only preliminary tests – it may well be a decade or more before driverless deliveries and long-distance haulage are an everyday reality. However, with the beginnings already upon us, a boom in automated jobs is surely coming sooner rather than later.

Driverless haulage lorries are just the latest in a range of technological upgrades to manual jobs. From driverless taxis , and Amazon’s long-awaited drone deliveries, to […]