Tag: Services

If we want a post-work future, we need to reconsider what counts as work in the first place

If we want a post-work future, we need to reconsider what counts as work in the first place

30 per cent of UK jobs could potentially be automated away by the early 2030s Work isn’t working anymore. Labour productivity has fallen in the UK since the financial crisis ; 13.5 million people are living in low-income households; real wages are falling and the Gini coefficient, which measures inequality, is rising.

The sustainability and quality of jobs in our economy is also decreasing – 7.1 million workers now face precarious working conditions , meaning that uncertainty (and for many, anxiety) itself is now built into our employment system. According to some estimates , 30 per cent of UK jobs […]

How Japan’s lifetime-employment system helps temper the automation dilemma

MORIYA, Japan — Thousands upon thousands of cans are filled with beer, capped and washed, wrapped into six-packs, and boxed at dizzying speeds — 1,500 a minute, to be exact — on humming conveyor belts that zip and wind in a sprawling factory near Tokyo.

Nary a soul is in sight in this picture-perfect image of Japanese automation.

The machines do all the heavy lifting at this plant run by Asahi Breweries, Japan’s top brewer. The human job is to make sure the machines do the work right and to check on the quality the sensors are monitoring.“Basically, nothing goes wrong. […]

Study: In the end, the machine will win

Study: In the end, the machine will win

If you’ve been following the ongoing debate over the “Fight for 15” and steep increases in the minimum wage, you’ll want to check out this article from James Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise Institute. He’s examining the new NBER working paper , “ People Versus Machines: The Impact of Minimum Wages on Automatable Jobs ” by Grace Lordan and David Neumark. In case you haven’t guessed from the title, it’s an analysis of the effect of higher minimum wages on the rate at which business shift from hiring lower skill, minimum wage workers to implementing automated / robotic solutions.

Here’s […]

Labor-short Japan more at home with automation than US

Labor-short Japan more at home with automation than US

MORIYA, Japan – Thousands upon thousands of cans are filled with beer, capped and washed, wrapped into six-packs, and boxed at dizzying speeds — 1,500 a minute, to be exact — on humming conveyor belts that zip and wind in a sprawling factory near Tokyo.

Nary a soul is in sight in this picture-perfect image of Japanese automation.The machines do all the heavy lifting at this plant run by Asahi Breweries, Japan’s top brewer. The human job is to make sure the machines do the work right, and to check on the quality the sensors are monitoring."Basically, nothing […]

85% of broker workload ‘immune’ to automation

85% of broker workload ‘immune’ to automation

Just 15 per cent of broker tasks are susceptible to automation, placing brokers on the lower end of the risk spectrum, AlphaBeta has said.

Andrew Charlton, director at the management consulting firm, told The Adviser that 15 per cent of the work brokers currently do is susceptible to automation and that, while automation implies change, “it doesn’t necessarily imply job loss”.

The AlphaBeta report titled The Automation Advantage , released in August, found that machines will "unburden" the average Australian worker of two hours of the “most tedious and manual” tasks a week over the next 15 years.The report, led by […]

Revolutionise training to cope with work revolution

Revolutionise training to cope with work revolution

START coding next year – that is the ambitious plan the Employees Provident Fund has in reskilling its staff members to prepare them for the rapidly changing work environment.

“Rather than wait for current changes to overtake us, we are retraining them to brace for the impact of technological disruptions on the world of work,” said EPF deputy chief executive officer of strategy division, Tunku Alizakri Alias.

And this will not be EPF’s first proactive measure in navigating the disruptive forces: in 2014, it launched its Retirement Advisory Services (RAS) to help members manage their retirement savings.While this initiative was a […]

Don’t Worry – Overall Employment Levels May Not Be Affected By Self Driving Vehicles.

Don't Worry - Overall Employment Levels May Not Be Affected By Self Driving Vehicles.

Shutterstock photo It is interesting to ponder the economic affects of autonomous (self driving) vehicles. A recent study claims by 2030 " the average American family will save more than $5,600 per year in transportation costs, equivalent to a wage raise of 10% ."

The study is fairly exhaustive listing many economic impacts – with well over half the impacts relating to job losses and oil sector demand reduction. Even many of the positive affects are double edged – such a productivity improvements which are good for business but not good for employment (all things being equal). One can argue […]

Is Skynet really coming for our jobs?

Cross-posted from Independent Australia :

It’s almost scary to think that the world as we know it may well be run by Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) one day.

While the risk of an imminent AI disruption of the labour market may sound like a fantasy, those with the most advanced AI technologies at hand think that AI is an imminent threat. They say an Industry 4.0 or cyber physical systems ( CPS ) revolution is coming whether we like it or not. Is this really true?AI in the labour market means the use of intelligent software to […]

Supercuts and the Future of (Too Many) Jobs

Supercuts and the Future of (Too Many) Jobs

Last week I got my hair cut at Supercuts. The wonderful old-fashioned barber shop that I always go to was closed for their annual vacation week, and I desperately needed a haircut for a big talk I was about to give. So Supercuts it was.

The haircut that I got a Supercuts was fine. The price was low, and the stylist was professional efficient.

The problem was the experience. There was a big line of people wanting to their hair cut, and not enough stylists to do the cutting. This was not due to a lack of barber chairs. There were […]

The Four Challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The Four Challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The evolution of global industries to Industry 4.0 (Rev 4.0) is both exciting and scary. Industry 4.0 is the designated code name for a combination of traditional manufacturing practices and industrial processes with technological capabilities, from automation to AI. From factories becoming self-monitoring to delivery vehicles becoming self-driving. Whilst there are many benefits of Industry 4.0, there are several key challenges that lie ahead. Cybersecurity

Having everything attached to everything else in the Internet of things (IoT) is going to monumentally increase the vulnerabilities present in any given network. With more nodes, connections and burden of connectivity, systems are […]