Tag: Services

How Weaker Consumer Demand Could Help the U.S. Economy

A Simbe Robotics Inc. Tally shelf-scanning robot travels through an aisle while customers browse products displayed for sale at a Giant Eagle Inc. Market District supermarket in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019. The Amazon.com Inc. threat has forced the grocery industry to experiment with shelf-scanning robots, dynamic pricing software, smart carts, mobile-checkout systems and automated mini-warehouses in the back of stores. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg) As concerns multiply about weak consumer demand, so have projections for a reduction in U.S. economic growth. But a brief pullback in consumer spending could give the U.S. economy just the room it […]

Why is blue-collar work still male-dominated?

Why is blue-collar work still male-dominated?

In the 20th century, women smashed glass ceilings across the world. But continued progress is not inevitable. Recent developments in the U.S. pose a stark warning: Abortion rights may be rolled back, and working-class women’s employment may be in jeopardy.

In the U.S., female school leavers are stuck in poorly paid “pink collar” jobs: as social workers, secretaries, beauticians, retail assistants, and waitresses. Mechanics, manufacturing, and other skilled manual jobs remain overwhelmingly male (Figure 1). Figure 1. Sex segregation of middle-class and working-class occupations in the United States

Why is this? There are at least four possible explanations. Brawn? […]

More or Less

More or Less

Perhaps we should have headlined this opinion piece “More With Less.” When it comes to staffing service industries, is that what’s happening, doing more with less? Or is it doing less with less?

Productivity — that’s doing more with less: increasing economic output with fewer hours dedicated to the task. One way to measure pandemic-related productivity — and “pandemic-related” is the reality of the times in which we live — was included in a recent New York Times article about the “pandemic productivity boom.” The Aug. 10 article stated, “Since the pandemic recession bottomed out in the spring of 2020, […]

With 10 Million Job Openings, Why Are There Still 8.4 Million Unemployed?

With 10 Million Job Openings, Why Are There Still 8.4 Million Unemployed?

(AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File) The Labor Department says that there are 10 million job openings across America in a variety of industries. Employers are begging for workers, especially lower-wage/entry-level workers.

And yet, there are still 8.4 million people wanting a job and still looking for work. Why the disparity?

There is no set, ideologically satisfying answer that could explain the phenomenon. About the only thing that’s certain is that the pandemic has led to what some labor experts are calling “The Great Reassessment” — both employers and workers are reassessing their options in a changing workspace that, when it all shakes […]

Do We Need Humans for That Job? Automation Booms After COVID

Do We Need Humans for That Job? Automation Booms After COVID

Baylee Bowers pays for her lunch using her cell phone at Bartaco in Arlington, Va., on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. Ask for a roast beef sandwich at an Arby’s drive-thru east of Los Angeles and you may be talking to Tori — an artificially intelligent voice assistant that will take your order and send it to the line cooks.

“It doesn’t call sick,” says Amir Siddiqi, whose family installed the AI voice at its Arby’s franchise this year in Ontario, California. “It doesn’t get corona. And the reliability of it is great.”

The pandemic didn’t just threaten Americans’ health when it […]

Do we need humans for that job? Automation booms after COVID

Do we need humans for that job? Automation booms after COVID

Baylee Bowers pays for her lunch using her cell phone at Bartaco in Arlington, Va., on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. The restaurant is using an automated app for ordering and payments. Instead of servers they use “food runners” to get orders to tables. “I like it,” says Bowers of the automation, “it was easy. I’m a flight attendant so as long as automation doesn’t come for my job I’m ok with it.” (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Ask for a roast beef sandwich at an Arby’s drive-thru east of Los Angeles and you may be talking to Tori — an artificially intelligent […]

John Hagney: Sinking wages are threatening democratic capitalism

John Hagney: Sinking wages are threatening democratic capitalism

By John Hagney

It would be a hardship for half of all Americans to afford a $400 emergency expense. – 2019 Federal Reserve Study

During two decades following World War II, moderation in American politics was predicated on a muscular middle class. The 1970-2020 dissipation of this “vital center” is reflected in continuing economic insecurity that oppresses most Americans, especially among those without college educations representing two-thirds of workers, and the present polarized political landscape.Beginning with the 1970s oil crises, the industrial heartland rusted, caused initially by increased demand for fuel-efficient Japanese automobiles. Prior to this, about 16% of American […]

Do we need humans for that job? Automation booms after COVID

Do we need humans for that job? Automation booms after COVID

Ask for a roast beef sandwich at an Arby’s drive-thru east of Los Angeles and you may be talking to Tori — an artificially intelligent voice assistant that will take your order and send it to the line cooks.

“It doesn’t call sick,” says Amir Siddiqi, whose family installed the AI voice at its Arby’s franchise this year in Ontario, California. “It doesn’t get corona. And the reliability of it is great.”

The pandemic didn’t just threaten Americans’ health when it slammed the U.S. in 2020 — it may also have posed a long-term threat to many of their jobs. Faced […]

How ‘Automation’ Made America Work Harder

How ‘Automation’ Made America Work Harder

Office workers at the Chrysler Corporation in Detroit, 1942. “Automation” promised ease for workers, but usually just created more work. Courtesy of Library of Congress / Arthur S. Siegel, photographer

The world confronts “an epochal transition.” Or so the consulting firm McKinsey and Company crowed in 2018, in an article accompanying a glossy 141-page report on the automation revolution. Over the past decade, business leaders, tech giants, and the journalists who cover them have been predicting this new era in history with increasing urgency. Just like the megamachines of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th and early 20th centuries—which […]

Your Food Prices Are at Risk as the World Runs Short of Workers

Your Food Prices Are at Risk as the World Runs Short of Workers

Fruit pickers pick apples in an orchard on a farm in Egerton, U.K. Whether it’s fruit pickers, slaughterhouse workers, truckers or waiters, the world’s food ecosystem is buckling due to a shortage of staff.

Across the world, a dearth of workers is shaking up food supply chains.

In Vietnam, the army is assisting with the rice harvest . In the U.K., farmers are dumping milk because there are no truckers to collect it. Brazil’s robusta coffee beans took 120 days to reap this year, rather than the usual 90. And American meatpackers are trying to lure new employees with Apple Watches […]