Tag: Services

Canadian Cities And Industries Most At Risk From Automation

Canadian Cities And Industries Most At Risk From Automation

About 46 per cent of the work done in Canada is at risk of being taken by machines, according to a report that seeks to identify the industries and places across the country that are most vulnerable to automation.

The report from the Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship doesn’t argue that automation is a bad thing.

“In the long run, technology has often helped to produce more jobs than it destroyed,” researchers Creig Lamb and Matthew Lo wrote. Jobs in food services and accommodation are at greatest risk of automation in Canada, with 69 per cent of the work done […]

In the age of disruption, what are the new rules of negotiating salary?

In the age of disruption, what are the new rules of negotiating salary?

If Robotic Process Automation is truly reducing the number of jobs, is salary negotiation a risk that a jobseeker should take? In a recent Harvard commencement speech, Mark Zuckerberg addressed his alma mater’s fresh graduates for “establishing a ‘social infrastructure’ for the world” as “generation-defining public works projects” that involve people towards a socially beneficial cause. Much like the recent technologies being developed at Facebook, his belief in a future with no job shortages despite automation was built not only “to create progress, but to create purpose”.

However, at a time when the World Bank data suggests that 69% of […]

Why Lifelong Learning is Our Competitive Advantage in the Automation Age

New technologies are transforming our profession, and they’re also transforming the skills we’ll need to stave off extinction.

In a paper titled “ The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation? ” University of Oxford researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne tried to gauge the odds that certain occupations will be completely automated within the next 20 years. Among their predictions: Tax preparation: 98.7 percent

Bookkeepers: 97.6 percent Accounting and auditing: 93.5 percent In fact, only seven occupations – cargo and freight agents, watch repairers, insurance underwriters, mathematical technicians, hand sewers, title examiners, and telemarketers […]

The robots are coming for our jobs but Deloitte’s COO doesn’t think it’s that scary

The robots are coming for our jobs but Deloitte's COO doesn't think it's that scary

Herwig Prammer/Reuters The robots are coming for our jobs.

As reported by Business Insider’s Elena Holodny , 47% of total US employment is at high risk of automation in the next ten to twenty years, according to an Oxford report .

To be sure, that doesn’t mean that those jobs will definitely be automated.A top executive at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, or Deloitte as it is commonly called, thinks the coming wave of automation is not something people should fear.Frank Friedman is the global chief operating officer of the 172-year-old financial firm known for its audit and consulting services. In his […]

Labor Markets in the Age of Automation

Labor Markets in the Age of Automation

BERKELEY – Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics are powering a new wave of automation, with machines matching or outperforming humans in a fast-growing range of tasks, including some that require complex cognitive capabilities and advanced degrees. This process has outpaced the expectations of experts; not surprisingly, its possible adverse effects on both the quantity and quality of employment have raised serious concerns.

To listen to President Donald Trump’s administration, one might think that trade remains the primary reason for the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States. Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, has declared that the possible technological […]

Why automation rather than Brexit is the prime challenge

Why automation rather than Brexit is the prime challenge

Donald Trump has been very vocal on protecting US manufacturing jobs Disruption is perhaps one of the most overused words in business – Amazon disrupted book selling, Uber disrupted taxis and Airbnb is disrupting hospitality.

But disruption has also been a major feature of politics, going as far back as the financial crisis, and including the Eurozone crisis, political turmoil in places like Greece and France, and the election of Donald Trump as US President.

Brexit is another major disruptor that is going to have significant implications for things like trade, labour, research, funding and borders. But the challenge at present […]

Trump Voters Need Good Economic Policy, Not Empathy

Trump Voters Need Good Economic Policy, Not Empathy

There has been a strange debate among many liberals and progressives since the election as to whether they should have empathy for the people who voted for Donald Trump. After all, Trump is a pretty reprehensible character who has pledged to do some pretty awful things in the White House. Is there a reason that people should have empathy for the voters who put him there?

Whatever answer you pick to that question, there is another set of questions that should be simpler for progressives to answer. What are the right economic policies to be pursuing for the working class? […]

Trump Voters Need Good Economic Policy, Not Empathy

Trump Voters Need Good Economic Policy, Not Empathy

There has been a strange debate among many liberals and progressives since the election as to whether they should have empathy for the people who voted for Donald Trump. After all, Trump is a pretty reprehensible character who has pledged to do some pretty awful things in the White House. Is there a reason that people should have empathy for the voters who put him there?

Whatever answer you pick to that question, there is another set of questions that should be simpler for progressives to answer. What are the right economic policies to be pursuing for the working class? […]

Labour and Artificial Intelligence: Visions of despair, hope, and liberation

Labour and Artificial Intelligence: Visions of despair, hope, and liberation

Science-fiction scenarios of rampant AI are interesting thought-experiments but already-existing AI is here, and requires well-crafted policy

A conventional delivery truck of Germany’s biggest retailer Metro AG stands behind the world’s first commercial delivery robot of Starship Technologies during a demonstration at Metro’s headquarter in Duesseldorf, Germany, June 7, 2016.(REUTERS) In the United States, job demographic data from censuses since the 1900s reveal a startling fact. Despite the two post-Industrial revolutions of electricity and computers, the occupations with the largest employment numbers are still jobs for drivers, retail, cashiers, secretaries, janitors etc, i.e. old professions needing simple skills and […]

Balancing automation and taxation

Balancing automation and taxation

Money maker: a taxing system for robots need to be developed to maintain societal balances Olaf Merk explains why ports should take the lead in defining how to tax automated industries

One of the biggest political issues of the coming decades is the future of work. Technological advances are such that more than half of the existing jobs could be automated. Automation might create new jobs, but these will very likely not offset the lost jobs. This has far-reaching consequences: uncorrected, automation will erode tax income, welfare state and lead to very unequal income distribution. Some people say that […]