Tag: manufactur

Automation and the Future of Work: Start the Nationwide Conversation

Automation and the Future of Work: Start the Nationwide Conversation

As the media continues to warn of an apocalyptic future where automation technology will fracture our employment landscape, Enate CEO Kit Cox, explains why innovation will override disaster.

When The World Economic Forum (WEF) released The Future of Jobs report in January 2016, it caused a stir amongst both companies and individuals with its controversial claims about the impact of technology on the future of work. The report claimed that within the next 15-20 years, we will see technologies “blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres.” WEF founder Klaus Schwab, highlighted that these changes will fundamentally alter […]

Why more men will soon find themselves doing ‘women’s work’

Why more men will soon find themselves doing ‘women’s work’

A construction laborer works high atop a building in down town Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 6, 2017.

Many fields that are traditionally dominated by women are set to expand in coming decades, while many jobs currently dominated by men are not. That’s the result of new research published Wednesday by Jed Kolko, an economist at job search site Indeed, which shows that less-educated men may especially face challenges in the job market of the future.

Jobs in the United States are still strongly divided by gender. A little more than one-third of men and a little less than […]

Robots – here to help or to steal your job?

Robots – here to help or to steal your job?

Automation is having a significant impact on the way we work. Here, Jonathan Wilkins, Marketing Director of obsolete industrial parts supplier, EU Automation, offers some predictions on the impact of robotics on the job market. A recent report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), predicted that by 2030 up to a third of UK jobs could be affected by automation and robotics. However, are robots really taking our jobs?

There has been much speculation on the true impact that robots will have on the workforce. While there is no denying that some job roles, particularly those involving manual labour, will cease […]

Where Have All the Shop Clerks Gone?

Daniel Gross is executive editor of We often talk about software and robots taking over jobs and eliminating the need for human labor. It’s common to hear these concerns center around jobs in factories, or in the trucking and taxi industries. Some of these changes may be far in the distance, or may not come about at all due to social and cultural resistance (and the fact that sometimes sci-fi-tinged ideas just don’t come to fruition). In fact, there are lots of jobs open in areas that you would think would be negatively affected by automation. For example, 364,000 […]

Why more men will soon find themselves doing “women’s work”

Why more men will soon find themselves doing “women’s work”

(Washington Post illustration; iStock) Many fields that are traditionally dominated by women are set to expand in coming decades, while many jobs currently dominated by men are not. That’s the result of new research published Wednesday by Jed Kolko, an economist at job search site Indeed, which shows that less-educated men may especially face challenges in the job market of the future.

Jobs in the United States are still strongly divided by gender. A little more than one-third of men and a little less than one-third of women work in fields that are at least 80 percent staffed by their […]

Is Automation to Blame for the Loss of U.S. Jobs?

Is Automation to Blame for the Loss of U.S. Jobs?

Image courtesy of www.engadget.com. Donald Trump has been talking a lot about American jobs – specifically manufacturing jobs – and how we can bring them back. But where have those jobs gone? And can we get them back?

The US has lost 5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000. That leaves about 12 million jobs in this sector. Trump and other politicians say the loss of jobs is due to outsourcing to China, with its cheap and available labor force. But that’s only part of the story. Technology has replaced many of these jobs, and those won’t come back. This makes […]

More robots, fewer jobs?

More robots, fewer jobs?

Lately we have been inept at creating new employment-generating sectors Our burgeoning young population is clearly struggling for jobs, despite being in the world’s fastest growing economy. More than 30% of Indians aged 15-29 are neither in employment nor in any training or education, according to a recent survey by the OECD. This added to the gloomy state of employment, for only in March the All India Council for Technical Education had said that more than 60% of the eight lakh engineers graduating from technical institutions across the country every year remain unemployed.

Bridging this employment gap could become an […]

Technology and the future of employment

Technology and the future of employment

Almost on a daily basis, there is news of some new scientific or technological development which brings to the fore the magnitude of the challenge of adjustment facing Barbados as a result of sweeping change taking place on a global level.

These developments, with far-reaching implications for various aspects of human life, are obvious to those who have eyes to see and choose to see instead of burying their heads in the sand, pretending that these changes are not for real, and hoping that they will soon go away.

The facts of the matter is that they are not going to. […]

Working with Robots: Human and Machine Coexistence in the Workforce

Working with Robots: Human and Machine Coexistence in the Workforce

Credit: whiteMocca/Shutterstock The pervasive fear that artificial intelligence (AI) will take over human economic livelihood has been felt in places like the manufacturing sector, as large swaths of the industry automate labor formerly done by humans . However, proponents of machine learning say ultimately AI and robotics will improve the way we do virtually everything, and ultimately create new jobs.

Still, nearly 40 percent of U.S. jobs were slated as a "high risk" for automation by the early 2030s in a March 2017 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). While the PwC report acknowledges it’s unlikely all those jobs will be automated […]

Efficiency in Work — Where Do Humans Fit In?

Efficiency in Work — Where Do Humans Fit In?

The rise in automation is going to bring about huge changes in the jobs market, and some will be better prepared than others. Efficiency in work. Man has always sought a better way to do more and, if possible, at a lower cost.

Simple machines such as levers, pulleys and inclined planes are found in the fossil record and were clearly part of the historic creation of the Great Pyramids and Greco-Roman construction.

Mass production was a need to achieve Henry Ford’s ostentatious goal of “a motor car for the great multitude,” hence, the first moving assembly line on a conveyor […]