Tag: Technology

How to reverse the trend of jobless growth

How to reverse the trend of jobless growth

India experienced decline in jobs due to a reduction in contract workers (nearly 70,000 were retrenched in the first half of FY16, compared to 161,000 additions in the first half of FY15). In a jobless growth economy, unemployment remains stubbornly high even as economy grows. This may be because a relatively large number of people may have lost their jobs or new members entering the workforce are much higher than jobs available. In India, the latter seems to be the case, thereby obstructing the benefits of growth from reaching the masses. While analysing the paradox of jobless growth, I […]

To ‘Protect’ Workers, World Bank Calls for Eliminating Minimum Wage, Giving Employers More Power

To 'Protect' Workers, World Bank Calls for Eliminating Minimum Wage, Giving Employers More Power

"Burdensome regulations also make it more expensive for firms to rearrange their workforce to accommodate changing technologies," the report noted.

In a major blow to labor rights, the World Bank in its annual flagship report, World Development Report, has called for the credit-states or "poor countries" to have fewer workers’ regulations, like eliminating a requirement for minimum wage, allowing the employers to fire workers without cause, and repealing laws limiting abusive employment contract terms.

The World Bank Report makes urgent policy recommendations to governments, and in its working draft it raised concerns over the growing use of artificial intelligence, […]

Tech Optimists See a Golden Future—Let’s Talk About How We’ll Get There

Tech Optimists See a Golden Future—Let’s Talk About How We’ll Get There

Technology evangelists dream about a future where we’re all liberated from the more mundane aspects of our jobs by artificial intelligence. Other futurists go further, imagining AI will enable us to become superhuman, enhancing our intelligence, abandoning our mortal bodies, and uploading ourselves to the cloud.

Paradise is all very well, although your mileage may vary on whether these scenarios are realistic or desirable. The real question is, how do we get there?

Economist John Maynard Keynes notably argued in favor of active intervention when an economic crisis hits, rather than waiting for the markets to settle down to a more […]

Meet Astrid Keusseyan, a self-described lab ‘nerd’

Meet Astrid Keusseyan, a self-described lab 'nerd'

WILMINGTON — Astrid Keusseyan is happy to dispel the myths that come with her job as administrative coordinator of laboratory and pathology services at New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

"When I tell people I work in a hospital, they ask, ‘Are you a nurse or a doctor?’ " she said.

Like a lot of jobs, television rarely gets hers right, Keusseyan said."It’s not a bunch of test tubes with blue liquid in them," she said.You know the image of a technician painstakingly peering at one slide after another in a microscope? Nope. In the NHRMC lab, dozens of images are displayed […]

Skills for the future: not as technical as you think

Skills for the future: not as technical as you think

In order to address job displacement, Southeast Asian countries have had a renewed focus on skills development. Specifically, skills development in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). It seems not a day passes without an announcement of a major technological innovation – from driverless cars to robots serving food in restaurants.

It is in the workplace that technology is having an increasingly transformative impact. New and possibly disruptive technology such as 3D manufacturing and retail drone deliveries are changing the nature of our workplaces. This technology presents all kinds of opportunities. New sectors will emerge. New jobs will emerge. Moreover, […]

Four multilateral development banks present study on technology’s impact on jobs

Four multilateral development banks present study on technology’s impact on jobs

The FINANCIAL — Rapid technological progress provides a significant opportunity for emerging and developing economies to grow faster and attain higher levels of prosperity. However, some disruptive technologies could displace human labour, widen income inequality and contribute to greater informality in the workforce. Tapping new technologies in a way that maximises benefits, mitigates adverse effects and shares opportunities among all citizens will require public-private cooperation and smart public policy.

That is one of the main conclusions of a new study: The Future of Work: Regional Perspectives, released today by four regional multilateral development banks (MDBs): the African Development Bank (AfDB), […]

World Bank recommends fewer regulations protecting workers

World Bank recommends fewer regulations protecting workers

The World Bank is proposing lower minimum wages and greater hiring and firing powers for employers as part of a wide-ranging deregulation of labour markets deemed necessary to prepare countries for the changing nature of work.

A working draft of the bank’s flagship World Development Report – which will urge policy action from governments when it comes out in the autumn – says less “burdensome” regulations are needed so that firms can hire workers at lower cost. The controversial recommendations, which are aimed mainly at developing countries, have alarmed groups representing labour, which say they have so far been frozen […]

Industry 4.0, industrial robots & 3D printing are on the cusp of changing how manufacturing is done

We love predictions. We love the way they create awe-inspiring futures that we either welcome with great anticipation or fear with crippling horror. The bigger and bolder, the better. If it’s the future, it undoubtedly will be spectacular.

I still remember sitting in Mr. Carls’ fifth-grade class at St. Patrick Grade School when he informed us all that we would be alive in the year 2000. We all gasped and marveled at a time so distant, when summers would surely last forever and bubble gum would be free. Oh, how lucky we would be to live in the year 2000. […]

The role of automation in the aging workforce

The role of automation in the aging workforce

Image Credit: 85Fifteen / Unsplash America is getting older . The Administration on Aging estimates that the segment of the United States population age 60 or older will increase to 22.2 percent in 2020. This change — driven by increased longevity and the demographic bulge of the baby boom — represents the biggest percentage point increase in the over-60 that America has ever seen. But what does this mean from an employment standpoint?

In the United States, a deep and youthful labor pool has been a differentiator for many years. In addition, there has been a real focus on ensuring […]

Will automation create jobs, or destroy them?

Will automation create jobs, or destroy them?

Asia’s experience shows that good jobs and wages reduce poverty. (Image Credit: ADB) In an era of sweeping transformations, one of the most important has been the dramatic reduction in poverty in developing Asia. Since 1990, more than one billion people have escaped extreme poverty, and many of them now earn a decent wage.

These workers are more productive and therefore earn higher salaries. Often they’ve left subsistence agriculture for better-paid jobs in modern industry and services – where 30 million new jobs have been created annually in the past 25 years.

Advances in technology have fueled this transition. From the […]