Jobs are changing – and fast. Here’s what trainers and employers must do to keep up

Jobs are changing – and fast. Here’s what trainers and employers must do to keep up

Technological developments are expected to majorly, and rapidly, disrupt or change the nature of employment. The multiplier effect of these disruptions interacting with each other has led to what has been termed the fourth industrial revolution.

The first industrial revolution took us from agrarian to industrial economies and the second used resources like electricity and steel to create mass production. The third refers to technology advancing from analog and mechanical devices to the digital technology available today.

The fourth industrial revolution represents ways technology has become embedded in societies by the fusion of technologies, or what is known as cyber-physical systems. […]

The UK is at risk of being left behind by the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The UK led the way in the First Industrial Revolution, embracing new technologies and the opportunities they created. But as we embark on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the transition to automation, the reality is we are lagging behind our international competitors in adoption of robot technology.

We cannot pretend that the move to automation doesn’t bring challenges for businesses and for workers. Given the way in which communities were failed during previous industrial changes, such as the decline of the UK’s coal and steel industries, it isn’t surprising that that some may be worried about job disruption and livelihoods. […]

The economic consequences of automation

The economic consequences of automation

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Reactions While Brexit captures the headlines in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the silent march of automation continues. Most economists view this trend favourably: Technology, they say, may destroy jobs in the short run, but creates new and better jobs in the longer term.

The destruction of jobs as a result of automation is clear and direct: a firm automates a conveyor belt, supermarket checkout or delivery system, keeps one-tenth of the workforce as supervisors, and fires the rest. But what happens after that is far less obvious.The standard economic argument is that workers affected by automation […]

Economic consequences of automation

LONDON — While Brexit captures the headlines in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the silent march of automation continues. Most economists view this trend favourably: Technology, they say, may destroy jobs in the short run, but it creates new and better jobs in the longer term.

The destruction of jobs is clear and direct: A firm automates a conveyor belt, supermarket checkout, or delivery system, keeps one-tenth of the workforce as supervisors, and fires the rest. But what happens after that is far less obvious.

The standard economic argument is that workers affected by automation will initially lose their jobs, but […]

Robot Tax Rebutted By Automation Industry On A Roll; Displaced Dockworkers Unconvinced

Robot Tax Rebutted By Automation Industry On A Roll; Displaced Dockworkers Unconvinced

A ludicrous idea from a desperate Democratic presidential candidate – that pretty much sums up how Bill De Blasio’s "robot tax" was received earlier this month. Mockery, mixed with disdain, poured from political commentators while business writers relied more on reason. Reason.com, for example, citing Reason’s Ron Bailey, foreman stevedore working in yard terminal of the port checking safety equipments readiness for start loading cargo anytime, lifting by gantry crane, working at risk on the high level insurance Getty

pointed out what many economic experts take to be a given, that automation creates more jobs than it destroys.

One of […]

Save the Robots

Save the Robots

New York’s mayor has a plan to address the displacement of workers through automation: Bill de Blasio wants the federal government to enact a “robot tax.” De Blasio’s proposed law stipulates that when a company introduces labor-saving automation, such as a forklift on a loading dock, it would have to pay the federal government five years’ worth of payroll taxes for each worker that the innovation displaces. The employer would have to find new jobs for the workers at their same pay or give them severance. Further, the law would invent a new federal agency to determine which jobs […]

The Economic Consequences of Automation

The Economic Consequences of Automation

Yu Haiyang/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images Economic theory does not provide a clear answer regarding the overall impact of technological progress on jobs. And even if automation has traditionally been beneficial in the long run, policymakers should never ignore its disruptive short-term effects on workers.

LONDON – While Brexit captures the headlines in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the silent march of automation continues. Most economists view this trend favorably: technology, they say, may destroy jobs in the short run, but it creates new and better jobs in the longer term.

> The Trump Narrative and the Next Recession […]

UK economy has ‘too few robots’, warn MPs

UK economy has 'too few robots', warn MPs

The UK is lagging behind the world’s other advanced economies in the shift to robots and automation in the workplace – putting jobs, businesses and the prosperity of whole regions at risk, according to an influential group of MPs.

MPs on the business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) committee said UK firms were losing out to competitors in the rest of the G7 after the government cut support for companies and failed to encourage investment.

Automation of industries from retail to manufacturing promises to revolutionise how businesses operate but also raises the threat of huge job losses as robots replace people […]

Australia has much to gain from resource sector technology advances, report says

Australia has much to gain from resource sector technology advances, report says

Harnessing new technologies in the mining, oil and gas industries will add A$74 billion ($50 billion) to the Australian economy by 2030 and create more than 80,000 new local jobs, according to a new report from METS Ignited and NERA.

Titled ‘Staying Ahead of the Game Report’, the report says data analytics, automation and robotics technologies continue to transform the resources sector and Australia needs to be at the forefront of technological progress or risk other countries taking the lead.

The report was designed to attempt to predict the nature and scale of how Australia’s resources industries, including both the producers […]

Mining employment returns to boom-time footing

Not quite deja vu all over again

That is a level not seen since the end of the original investment boom triggered by China’s compounding embrace of seaborne raw materials markets from 2005.

When that once-in-a-century expansion in mining sector capacity began local miners directly employed an estimated 113,000 people. By the time the boom exhausted itself in 2012, 274,000 Australians were employed by miners. As AMMA noted, through that hectic seven-year stretch, workforce demand in the mining business grew by 20 per cent annually.The resulting cost inflation – particularly in the heavy equipment, engineering and contract construction sectors – […]