Tag: productivity

‘It was bound to happen’: Machines are coming to the Vegas Strip — and they may take jobs

'It was bound to happen': Machines are coming to the Vegas Strip — and they may take jobs

Ford wants to use walking robots to help self-driving cars deliver packages. USA TODAY

LAS VEGAS – The coming of the machines is inevitable. And this city knows it.

MGM Resorts International this year plans to install at Las Vegas resorts an unknown number of automated beverage systems programmed to mix hundreds of different drinks – all at the touch of a button.It’s a job that for many years depended on the hands of living, breathing service workers. But as the incoming technology moves closer to Southern Nevada casinos, rank-and-file union workers can’t say for certain whether machines will force them […]

This Lunatic Ten Hour Working Week Idea!

This Lunatic Ten Hour Working Week Idea!

Just when you thought you’d heard it all, along comes the Labour bigwigs backing an absolutely loony-tunes proposal for a ten hour working week.

PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW:

Doesn’t it sound so attractive, no-one will work more than ten hours a week and we can save the environment from the climate emergency and have a much better work-life balance in the process.The numbers in the report by Philipp Frey for Autonomy all crunch out right in the spread sheets and the formulas all add up.What it seems to be saying is that, if the country is economically much […]

Sweater manufacturers switching over to automated production system

Industry Desk: A technological shift has been taking place in the country’s readymade garment sector especially in sweater segment as manufacturers are switching over to an automated production system, industry people said.
The main purposes behind the shift are to grab the growing demands for value-added items, increase the productivity of their units and also avoid any untoward labor unrest that took place over wage issues.
A good number of sweater units have already installed the required machines for automation, while some are installing and others are actively considering it, industry insiders said.
The sweater factory workers get their […]

Explaining the labor share: automation vs labor market institutions

Guimarães, Luis and Gil, Pedro (2019): Explaining the labor share: automation vs labor market institutions.

This is the latest version of this item. Abstract

In this paper, we build a theoretical model to study the effects of automation and labor market institutions on the labor share. In our model, firms choose between two technologies: an automated technology and a manual technology. In this context, the labor share reflects both the average wage level (versus output) and the distribution of firms between the two technologies. Our model offers three main insights. First, automation-augmenting shocks reduce the labor share but […]

Automation is Here. How Are You Leveraging It?

Automation is Here. How Are You Leveraging It?

Automation Technology 5558c5b706074 CPA firms are in the midst of a transition. For years, research firms and thought leaders have been predicting the disruption of the profession through automation. That disruption isn’t a vision for the future – it’s here now. In 2017, Gartner has forecast a transition period, lasting through 2020, in which AI would eliminate 1.8 million jobs. However, it also predicted the creation of 2.3 million jobs.

Currently, technology is creating ever-expanding opportunities for automation in accounting firms and changing the expectations of clients, employees and partners. So right now, we need to decide how we will […]

Automation to disproportionately affect women in healthcare

Automation to disproportionately affect women in healthcare

An emergency department in 2030 is poised to look much different as automation takes hold, and those changes are likely to disproportionately affect women in healthcare, according to a new report.

Automation will displace as many as 1 in 4 female workers across all sectors, or 160 million women, but that will be offset by an increase in demand and productivity, according to a new report from the McKinsey Global Institute. That does not account for "frontier" jobs that one could not even imagine today, said Kweilin Ellingrud, a senior partner at McKinsey and co-author of the report.

"It is scary […]

What is the fifth industrial revolution and how will it change the world?

What is the fifth industrial revolution and how will it change the world?

New technology is just the tip of the fifth industrial revolution iceberg (Picture: Brittany Hosea-Small/AFP/Getty Images) There were nearly two centuries between the first and second industrial revolutions.

We’re now living in either the third or fourth industrial revolution (also known as Industry 4.0), depending on who you talk to, and we’re ‘on the cusp’ of the fifth one.

With the third only fully getting underway in 2012, according to the Economist , that’s a lot of industrial revolutions for a decade.The first mechanised the textile industry, the second created the means for mass production and the third is around the […]

“Is it unethical to not tell my employer I’ve automated my job?”

“Is it unethical to not tell my employer I’ve automated my job?”

Roughly two years ago, a post on workforce question-and-answer site Workplace StackExchange generated a lively debate. The post, which has since been viewed nearly a half-million times, was by a user named Etherable, who designed an algorithm that transformed the substance of a 40-hour workweek into a two-hour project. The poster was using the remaining time to tend to personal issues and spend more time with their son. Etherable asked, “Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I’ve automated my job?”

The question seems to be a straightforward yes/no question. But the responses were often qualified. Some […]

Automation vs jobs – 5 questions everyone should look at and ask!

Automation vs jobs – 5 questions everyone should look at and ask!

Everywhere is the fear of large-scale automation leading to mass unemployment and insecurity. We are at the cusp of major technological change, drastically changing the nature of jobs, leaving masses of people unemployed and worsening economic inequality.

According to a 2013 study by Oxford University researchers, 47 percent of U.S. employees are at risk of automation, while a 2017 McKinsey Global Institute report claims that one-third of U.S. workers will be displaced by imminent automation from their current jobs. Other reports offer tamer prospects, with a recent OCDE report (2018) finding that only 9% of U.S. jobs are “highly automatable.” […]

Artificial intelligence, the future of work, and inequality

Artificial intelligence, the future of work, and inequality

Figure 1: Gross Domestic Product in five countries, 1000-2015. Source: The CORE-Econ Project. Credit: Colorado State University One of the most spectacular facts of the last two centuries of economic history is the exponential growth in GDP per capita in most of the world. Figure 1 shows the rise (and the difference) in living standards for five countries since 1000 AD.

This economic progress, unprecedented in human history, would be impossible without major breakthroughs in technology. The economic historian Joel Mokyr has argued that the Enlightenment in Britain brought new ways to transfer scientific discoveries into practical tools for engineers […]