Tag: productivity

Automation, aging and employment: winners and losers

Automation, aging and employment: winners and losers

The developed societies are witnessing a technological revolution that is advancing rapidly in a globalized world. The clearest manifestation is possibly the automation of productive processes. The development of machines / robots that perform tasks, mostly routine and codifiable, that we previously made humans, is undoubted opportunities but also no lesser challenges. It entails opportunities because the robots undoubtedly perform these tasks with greater precision and speed -and consequently increases productivity-, and in addition they prevent people from carrying out very heavy and / or unpleasant tasks in many cases. These increases in productivity are undoubtedly an opportunity that […]

Inside the hellish workday of an Amazon warehouse employee

Inside the hellish workday of an Amazon warehouse employee

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Enlarge Image The labor can be so grueling at Amazon that one worker in Kentucky said she needs four pain meds just to get through the workday. It took just three days of working full time at an Amazon “fulfillment center” outside of Louisville, Kentucky, for Emily Guendelsberger’s body to break down.

She’d been warned by her supervisors that it would be physically demanding. She’d be on her feet for 12-hour shifts, walking a total of 15 to 20 miles through a 25-acre warehouse — as long as seven New York blocks — looking for merchandise to fulfill […]

Is Jeff Bezos Proving the Fed’s De-linking of Unemployment and Inflation?

Is Jeff Bezos Proving the Fed’s De-linking of Unemployment and Inflation?

I’ve written a couple of times over the years about the threat to jobs by technological automation and several pieces of news this week feels make now feel like an appropriate juncture to pick up the thread again. For a primer on the relationship between interest rates, job automation and inflation, have a read of this piece where I discussed some of the considerations facing the Fed. Of importance will be the basic understanding of the traditional interpretation of the Phillips Curve. An economic idea which fairly effectively conceptualised the basic principle that the level of unemployment within an […]

Neo Cab Takes On Uber & Lyft’s Gig Economies Via Near Future Sci-Fi

Neo Cab Takes On Uber & Lyft's Gig Economies Via Near Future Sci-Fi

The gig economy is beginning to define America’s employment system. Uber and Lyft (and others) changed the way people work. There’s the positive – work when you want for as long as you want – and negatives – minimal pay and no benefits. Eventually, that could all be automated. That’s the future Chance Agency’s Neo Cab explores.

“A close friend of mine was a part of the initial Lyft beta (when Uber was still black cars and limos), and we interviewed dozens of drivers, delivery folks and other gig workers to gather ideas about the entire ‘app worker’ space. Driver […]

Artificial Intelligence will kill jobs—and create them

Artificial Intelligence will kill jobs—and create them

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, the automation of tasks once done by humans has raised fears about machines putting humans out of work and creating mass poverty. Happily, history has repeatedly proven the doomsayers wrong. While automation has certainly led to declines in entire industries (and employment in those industries), the relationship between automation and overall employment growth has been strongly positive over time.

There are sound explanations for this positive relationship. One, automation increases labour productivity and therefore raises the income levels of workers. Resulting increases in income translate into increased demand for all types of goods and services, […]

Op-Ed: Automation – CEOs love it, but there’s a Catch 22 and 23

Op-Ed: Automation – CEOs love it, but there’s a Catch 22 and 23

A report by The Economist and the world’s major driver of automation, UIPath, has found that CEOs and other C level people love automation. Other surveys tell a very different story of its impact.

Information provided by various sources does generally agree that it’s the top levels of business which are pushing automation , hard and fast. Automation is directly linked to strategic goals and revenue. In short, senior executive around the world are making major commitments to automation as the way forward across a very broad spectrum of major corporations. It’s coming, whether anyone else likes it or not. […]

Jeff Bezos just sent a clear signal that AI will remake American jobs

Jeff Bezos just sent a clear signal that AI will remake American jobs

This story requires our BI Prime membership. To read the full article, simply click here to claim your deal and get access to all exclusive Business Insider PRIME content.

Amazon is retraining a third of its US workforce, the Wall Street Journal reports .

This is part of a larger trend in retraining. According to new ZipRecruiter research , half of Americans will need to change careers by 2030. Click here for more BI Prime stories. One of America’s largest tech titans is taking a new shape, and it’s a harbinger of retraining to come.Amazon […]

SADOW: Raising The Minimum Wage Kills Jobs, And Here’s Proof How

SADOW: Raising The Minimum Wage Kills Jobs, And Here’s Proof How

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Tweet Plus Comment Need another good reason to understand the utter folly of attempts to make Louisiana raise its minimum wage? Just observe those touchscreen checkouts when you walk into a store selling groceries.By now, informed individuals know full well that the minimum wage costs jobs and how, because almost no sole breadwinners of families work full-time at the minimum wage and even fewer of them are older than 25, the modal category of such workers are young, recent job force entrants who have no dependents and live in a household with others […]

Steven Globerman: Artificial Intelligence will kill jobs — and create them

Steven Globerman: Artificial Intelligence will kill jobs — and create them

Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks during the unveiling of the new Tesla Model Y in Hawthorne, California on March 14, 2019. Musk says intelligent machines will replace human workers. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, the automation of tasks once done by humans has raised fears about machines putting humans out of work and creating mass poverty. Happily, history has repeatedly proven the doomsayers wrong. While automation has certainly led to declines in entire industries (and employment in those industries), the relationship between automation and overall employment growth has been strongly positive over time.

There are sound explanations for this positive […]

Robotics—the AI Future is Now

Austin , TX

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

The Herman Trend Alert This May, we received a new report from Littler Mendelson, the largest employment law firm on the planet. This Herman Trend Alert offers selected information from that landmark study. By 2020, robotics and AI are expected to produce revenue of $258 billion USD; by 2025, that figure will be a trillion dollars. And not long later, robotics and AI (Artificial Intelligence) will become the largest global industry. Destruction of Jobs? Or Creation? Though much media attention has focused on the destruction of jobs due to automation. Actually, technology and […]