Tag: productivity

Slaughter & Rees Report: Whither Globalization and Work?

Slaughter & Rees Report: Whither Globalization and Work?

The world’s two largest economies are engaged in a trade war without clear end. Britain is in the midst of a messy exit from the European Union.

Germany wants to block foreign takeovers of German companies. And worldwide there were more than three times as many restrictive trade measures implemented in 2017–18 as liberalizing ones, according to Global Trade Alert. All of this prompts the question: Is globalization going in reverse?

Not quite. Yes, trade in goods is growing more slowly amidst rising trade barriers in many places. But trade in goods is still growing, and trade in information and other […]

Tech is splitting the workforce in two

Tech is splitting the workforce in two

Employees assemble Tasers at the Axon headquarters in Scottsdale, Ariz., Jan. 29. While some jobs are changing or being eliminated because of automation, many positions at Axon still require the dexterity of human hands.

PHOENIX — It’s hard to miss the dogged technological ambition pervading this sprawling desert metropolis.

There’s Intel’s $7 billion, 7-nanometer chip plant going up in Chandler. In Scottsdale, Axon, the maker of the Taser, is hungrily snatching talent from Silicon Valley as it embraces automation to keep up with growing demand. Startups in fields as varied as autonomous drones and blockchain are flocking to the area, drawn […]

Tech is splitting workforce in two

Tech is splitting workforce in two

1of3Abhijit Majumdar, AI/vision developer at Plus One Robotics, demonstrates the PickOne, a Swiss-made robot that sorts out cluttered packages, which uses software developed by Plus One.Photo: Bob Owen / Hearst Newspapers It’s hard to miss the dogged technological ambition pervading the sprawling desert metropolis of Phoenix.

There’s Intel’s $7 billion, 7-nanometer chip plant going up in Chandler. In Scottsdale, Axon, the maker of the Taser, is hungrily snatching talent from Silicon Valley as it embraces automation to keep up with growing demand. Startups in fields as varied as autonomous drones and blockchain are flocking to the area, drawn in large […]

Robots, Automation and Jobs: A Status Report

Robots, Automation and Jobs: A Status Report

Back when I wrote posts ringing the alarm about what robots and automation would do to the American worker, I got the standard replies. They came from experts rephrasing common wisdom. They based their rebuttals on what happened when automation replaced 10 million agricultural workers with big machines.

Don’t worry, people said: “Technology and automation will create more jobs than they replace. Sure, some workers will get the short end of the stick but they only have low-end jobs.”

“The economy will boom and workers replaced by robots will have shiny, brand-new jobs to choose from.” “increasing productivity will make […]

Let’s find solutions to problems of youth not social media banter

Let’s find solutions to problems of youth not social media banter

The spectre of unemployment will neither be solved by knee jerk reactions to media stories, nor from formal employment.

It’s a complex monster, which to tackle, calls for a radical recalibration of our means of production, the collective national spirit towards entrepreneurship, and a revamped education system to align to the technological changes sweeping the world.

The tale of Ms Ruth Rono, the fabled first-class Chuka University graduate of economics who resorted to odd jobs to eke out a living, captured the nation’s imagination. Her plight sent tongues wagging. Social media, as usual, erupted. And then, thankfully, […]

Let’s find solutions to problems of youth not social media banter

Let’s find solutions to problems of youth not social media banter

The spectre of unemployment will neither be solved by knee jerk reactions to media stories, nor from formal employment.

It’s a complex monster, which to tackle, calls for a radical recalibration of our means of production, the collective national spirit towards entrepreneurship, and a revamped education system to align to the technological changes sweeping the world.

The tale of Ms Ruth Rono, the fabled first-class Chuka University graduate of economics who resorted to odd jobs to eke out a living, captured the nation’s imagination. Her plight sent tongues wagging. Social media, as usual, erupted. And then, thankfully, […]

Are robots coming for your job? Maybe

Are robots coming for your job? Maybe

Meghan Escalante works among several automated robotic arms at Continental’s Seguin manufacturing plant. Will a robot take your job? Maybe.

San Antonio is at “high risk” of losing one of every four jobs to automation in the near future, according to a recent report by the Brookings Institution.

While that figure might seem alarming, the Alamo City is “middling, if not relatively unexposed, to major shocks from automation,” said Jacob Whiton, a senior research assistant at the Washington think tank and co-author of the report.The most vulnerable jobs are the ones in which 70 percent of the tasks could potentially be […]

Someone Needs To Tell Trump About Automation

Someone Needs To Tell Trump About Automation

WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 05: President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol Building on February 5, 2019 in Washington, DC. President Trump’s second State of the Union address was postponed one week due to the partial government shutdown. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Getty) The first substantive claim President Donald Trump made in his second State of the Union address concerned what is perhaps his favourite non-Wallean topic: blue-collar jobs.

If there are two professions that Trump has awkwardly and effusively embraced during his tenure as […]

AI and machine learning expected to boost productivity

An increase in the productivity and pace of business processes can be expected, owing to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), says cloud service firm Oracle South Africa MD Niral Patel .

An autonomous enterprise requires less time for manual tasks and lower margins of human error because of labour-intensive work. These productivity-increasing technologies are helping to transform traditional roles and create new forms of employment.

“It is about improving the decision-making capabilities of people by arming them with rich, relevant, topical and timely data,” he explains.Autonomous systems can accelerate tasks that take more time than businesses […]

Vijay Eswaran Talks About the Role of Technology in the Modern Business Landscape

Vijay Eswaran Talks About the Role of Technology in the Modern Business Landscape

As influential leaders, entrepreneurs, and politicians gather in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum, one topic is on everyone’s mind: the impact technology is having on the workplace. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau touched on the topic with concern for the speed of change. He stated that “the world of work certainly has changed a lot since I started out in business in the 1980s… The pace of change, [especially technological change], has never been this fast, yet it will never be this slow again.” This echoes the fears that many of us share about the pace of […]