Tag: productivity

The Rise of Global Trade in Services

The Rise of Global Trade in Services

Our mental images of "global trade" are usually about goods: cars and steel, computers and textiles, oil and home appliances, and so on. But in the next few decades, most of the action in terms of increasing global trade is likely to be in services, not goods. More and more of the effects of trade on jobs is going to involve services, too. However, most of us are not used to thinking about countries import and export across national borders transportation services, financial services, tourism, construction, health care and education services, or many others. The 2019 World Trade Report […]

Automation hypochondria in the new industrial age

Automation hypochondria in the new industrial age

The world has experienced four industrial revolutions and as each has unfolded, so have dire predictions of massive job losses. Looking back at the first three, it is clear that concerns were misplaced. The number of jobs increased each time, as did living standards and every other social indicator. McKinsey predicts that 800 million workers could be displaced in 42 countries — a third of the workforce — because of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Although similar predictions were made at the onset of each revolution of the past, could there be something more to it this time? A […]

Opinion: If the Democrats keep saying crazy things about the economy, Trump will win again

Opinion: If the Democrats keep saying crazy things about the economy, Trump will win again

Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang exchange a high-five at the Democratic presidential candidates debate. With felonies flying fast and furious at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue this week, it may seem a curious time to write about how Democrats running for president are saying kind of crazy things.

But they are.

Because Andrew Yang, Bernie Sanders and (sometimes) Elizabeth Warren are radically misdiagnosing problems in the U.S. economy, they are off — often miles off — in prescriptions for reform.The sheer amount of loose talk about how capitalism is failing is stunning. This myth-making scares workers in the present, and sparks proposals that […]

Leaders Need To Embrace The Digitized Future Of Work, Not Fear

Leaders Need To Embrace The Digitized Future Of Work, Not Fear

The machines are coming for our jobs. This is a dystopian vision of the future of work popularized by the media and perpetuated in boardrooms across the globe.

South Africa is not immune from this misperception and here it has created a climate of fear and paralysis. Leaders, both civic and corporate, hesitate to encourage and incentivise the very digitalization needed to sustain and grow our economies out of a misguided fear of job losses and the ensuing civil backlash.

Ironically, the exact efforts to protect jobs from technology may end up being the biggest cause of job losses in the […]

Op-Ed: Why leaders need to embrace, not fear, the digitised future of work

Op-Ed: Why leaders need to embrace, not fear, the digitised future of work

By Valter Adão, Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, Deloitte Africa

The machines are coming for our jobs. This is a dystopian vision of the future of work popularised by the media and perpetuated in boardrooms across the globe.

South Africa is not immune from this misperception and here it has created a climate of fear and paralysis. Leaders, both civic and corporate, hesitate to encourage and incentivise the very digitalisation needed to sustain and grow our economies out of a misguided fear of job losses and the ensuing civil backlash.Ironically, the exact efforts to protect jobs from technology may end […]

Opinion: If the Democrats keep saying crazy things about the economy, Trump will win again

Opinion: If the Democrats keep saying crazy things about the economy, Trump will win again

Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang exchange a high-five at the Democratic presidential candidates debate. With felonies flying fast and furious at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue this week, it may seem a curious time to write about how Democrats running for president are saying kind of crazy things.

But they are.

Because Andrew Yang, Bernie Sanders and (sometimes) Elizabeth Warren are radically misdiagnosing problems in the U.S. economy, they are off — often miles off — in prescriptions for reform.The sheer amount of loose talk about how capitalism is failing is stunning. This myth-making scares workers in the present, and sparks proposals that […]

Basic income can’t do enough to help workers displaced by technology

Basic income can’t do enough to help workers displaced by technology

A driverless truck being tested in Russia in 2018. The October Democratic presidential debate featured something that many activists would have considered impossible just a few years ago: a lengthy debate between leading presidential candidates about a universal basic income , a policy that would give all l adult Americans a basic cash benefit every month.

Andrew Yang , the nonprofit chief and entrepreneur who is currently polling ahead of senators like Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar, has made a $1,000-per-month basic income for everyone between the ages of 18 and 64 — which he calls a “Freedom Dividend” […]

India’s unemployment problem may worsen as robots snatch away jobs

India’s unemployment problem may worsen as robots snatch away jobs

With prices falling thanks to China scaling up, mid-sized companies here are now able to afford robots, and they have gradually begun to displace humans on factory shopfloors

A decade back, Vienna-based Wienerberger, the world’s largest brick-maker, decided to take its first step into Asia and chose India over China. It spent ₹250 crore in building a factory in Kunigal village, 70 kilometres to the west of Bengaluru, next to a dry lake rich in clay. Today, the plant produces 70,000 blocks of hollow, chocolate-smooth blocks a day, the equivalent of 6 lakh conventional bricks.

Wienerberger India’s building block […]

Andrew Yang, Snake Oil Salesman

Andrew Yang, Snake Oil Salesman

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang speaks at the New Hampshire Democratic Party state convention in Manchester, September 7, 2019. Andrew Yang, the tech entrepreneur and gadfly, has definitely cleared the bar for a successful cause candidate.

Not only has he exceeded expectations for his polling and fundraising, not only has he developed a cult following, not only has he got people talking about his signature idea, the universal basic income, he actually has other candidates expressing openness to it.

It’s too bad that Yang’s idea is a foolish response to a non-problem. Worse, Yang is trying to persuade people to fear and oppose […]

Andrew Yang’s (phantom) robot menace

Andrew Yang’s (phantom) robot menace

Enlarge Image Andrew Yang, the tech entrepreneur and gadfly, has definitely cleared the bar for a successful cause candidate.

Not only has he exceeded expectations for his polling and fundraising, not only has he developed a cult following, not only has he got people talking about his signature idea, the universal basic income, he actually has other candidates expressing openness to it.

It’s too bad that Yang’s idea is a foolish response to a non-problem. Worse, Yang is trying to convince people to fear and oppose something that we need more of and that is a key to economic progress and […]