Tag: manufactur

In Our View: Focus on Future Jobs

In Our View: Focus on Future Jobs

In striving to make America great again, President Trump is wise to focus upon jobs. His desire to bolster manufacturing in the United States and create a climate in which employment blossoms resonated with millions of voters across the country and played a key role in landing him in the White House.

But while Trump’s goal is lofty, the reality of modern industry requires a more thoughtful and nuanced approach than the one he has thus far embraced. Trump and his administration must prepare for the game-changing role that automation will continue to play in the economy.

This was driven home […]

The Fallacy Behind Populism And Automation Fears

The Fallacy Behind Populism And Automation Fears

Wade Slome The rise of global populism and anti-immigration sentiments, coupled with the perpetual rising trend of automation and robotics has stoked the fear fires of job security. Many stories perpetuate erroneous stereotypes and falsehoods. The news reports and blog articles come in various flavors, but in a nutshell the stories state the U.S. is hemorrhaging jobs due to the thieves of illegal immigration and heartless robotics. The job displacement theory is built upon the idea that these two sources of labor (immigrants & robots) are cheaper and more productive than traditional blue collar and white collar American workers.

Although […]

The Robot Economy: Ready or Not, Here It Comes

The Robot Economy: Ready or Not, Here It Comes

Duc Tran, an automation engineer, observes the fully autonomous robotic truck loader during a test at the Wynright Robotics facility in Arlington, Texas, July 18, 2012. (Photo: Brandon Thibodeaux / The New York Times) September 17 changed everything.

On that day in 2013, Oxford University published an innocuously titled academic paper by two mostly unknown economists. But " The Future of Employment " wasn’t just another number-crunching exercise in opacity by a couple of dreary scientists. No, their bombshell report portended a coming robot apocalypse that could change the nature of human civilization, and perhaps even human beings themselves.

Thankfully, the […]

The Fallacy Behind “Robots Will Steal Your Jobs” Fears

The Fallacy Behind “Robots Will Steal Your Jobs” Fears

The rise of global populism and anti-immigration sentiments, coupled with the perpetual rising trend of automation and robotics has stoked the fear fires of job security . Many stories perpetuate erroneous stereotypes and falsehoods. The news reports and blog articles come in various flavors, but in a nutshell the stories state the U.S. is hemorrhaging jobs due to the thieves of illegal immigration and heartless robotics. The job displacement theory is built upon the idea that these two sources of labor (immigrants & robots) are cheaper and more productive than traditional blue collar and white collar American workers. skeeze […]

Why aren’t robots boosting economic productivity?

Why aren’t robots boosting economic productivity?

Robots are making inroads in the modern workplace, but the promised benefits aren’t materializing. The robot revolution is real, but the effects are doubly disappointing. Not only are they displacing workers and taking manufacturing jobs, somehow robots are failing to boost output or make the economy more productive.

When, for instance, an auto manufacturer installs cutting-edge robotic arms, two things are supposed to happen. First, the company becomes more efficient, allowing consumers everywhere to reap the benefit of less-expensive, robot-welded cars. Second, while they might lay off some assembly line workers, in theory those workers could move into high-demand jobs […]

Column: Robots changing employment patterns across America

Column: Robots changing employment patterns across America

AS IF there were not enough uncertainty surrounding the slow-growth economy in the United States, robots now threaten to replace four in 10 jobs within the next 15 years or so.

At least, that is, according to the latest estimate by Price Waterhouse Coopers consulting. Asked about robots’ impact on the workforce, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he isn’t worried, and that the problem isn’t even on his radar, at least for now.

Will we be displaced by robots? The short answer is: yes and no.According to the Association for Advancing Automation, 136,748 robots were shipped to U.S. customers between […]

Google Exec: I Am A ‘Job Elimination Denier’ When It Comes To Robots

Google Exec: I Am A ‘Job Elimination Denier’ When It Comes To Robots

A man waiting in line with a robot for a job interview. [Shutterstock – petrmalinak] The chairman of Google parent company Alphabet said Wednesday he is a “job elimination denier” when it comes to robots and their integration into the workplace.

Eric Schmidt, who used to be the CEO of Google, asserted during a speech at an MIT research institute that occupation displacement from automation in certain areas is being balanced out by other additional jobs, Business Insider reports .

“The economic folks would say that you can see the job that’s lost, but you very seldom can see the job […]

Artificial Intelligence and the Role of Workers

Artificial Intelligence and the Role of Workers

While the field of artificial intelligence (AI) has been around for some 60 years , it’s now finally a part of our daily lives — including how we work, bank, shop, interact, invest, drive and get insured. The term AI means different things to different people, but at PwC we think about it on a continuum, moving from assisted to augmented and, finally, autonomous intelligence.

Here, I am primarily focusing on assisted intelligence — applications that help us better perform tasks we’re already doing today. This includes things like email filtering, automated processing of insurance claims and customer service chatbots, […]

We need to track more than GDP to understand how automation is transforming work

We need to track more than GDP to understand how automation is transforming work

A new report by the US-based National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine suggests that not only has the automation of work barely begun but that the ways in which we measure the effects of technology on employment are inadequate to the task.

The authors argue that to understand how automation is transforming our workplaces, we need better ways of tracking technological change. Put simply, they are saying that if we are what we measure – that is, if policy is driven by the information we collect – then we are collecting the wrong information.

“Data on many of these trends […]

Automation and Jobs – The Atlantic

Automation and Jobs – The Atlantic

Economists expect that millions of American jobs are going to be replaced by automation in the coming decades. But where will those job losses take place? Which areas will be hardest hit?

Much of the focus regarding automation has been on the Rust Belt. There, many workers have been replaced by machines, and the number of factory jobs has slipped as more production is offshored. While a lot of the rhetoric about job loss in the Rust Belt has centered on such outsourcing, one study from Ball State University found that only 13 percent of manufacturing job losses are attributable […]