Automation and Unemployment

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Automation and Unemployment

• By Jason Forsythe
• CSC 385
• Dr.Guinn

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Introduction

• Technology and automation affecting the workplace
• Increases in productivity
• Globalization of job market
• Organization of companies
• Unemployment
• Workplace monitoring
• Impacts of technology on society
• Digital divide
• Winner-take-all effects

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The Effects of Automation on Employment

• The big cause for concern when discussing the
  effects of computers is the loss of jobs.
• This is an extremely controversial issue that has
  good arguments for both sides.
• Do computers cause unemployment?
• Because of the age and growth rates of technology
  it is a hard question to answer.

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The Negative Affects

• The number of bank tellers dropped 37 between
  1983 and 1993.
• The number of telephone switchboard operators
  dropped from 421,000 in 1970 to 164,000 in 1996.
• In the early 1990s newspapers where filled with
  articles about layoffs IBM, General Motors,
  Sears, and other large companies laid off tens of
  thousands.

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The Positive Affects

• Although these companies downsized the leading
  cause was increased productivity.
• Studies show that in U.S. factories productivity
  per worker more than tripled.
• The bank handles 1.5 million customer inquiries
  with fewer services reps.
• The railroad ships more tons per worker with its
  computerized dispatch system.

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The Positives Cont.

• Computers and technology also create jobs.
• People design, build, and program electronic
  devices and computers that replaced existing
  systems and networks that replaced telephone
  operators.
• Jobs are also created writing software, building
  cell phones, routers, servers, etc. that help run
  the Internet.
• Other new jobs created by technology are ones
  not imagined or possible before. (Baase)

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Positives Cont.

• Automation lowers prices
• In turn it increases demand for products
• It also increases real incomes
• Increasing demand for other products
• Increased demand ? more jobs
• Number of manufacturing jobs worldwide is
  increasing

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What is the Answer?

• Do computers create more jobs than they destroy?
  Can it be measured?
• Will they cause the job market to split in half
  one-side highly paid, highly skilled
  professionals and another low paid without skill?
• Are the benefits worth it?
• What will the job market look like 100, 50, or
  even 20 years from now?

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Sources

• Baase, Sara. A Gift of Fire. Ed. Toni D. Holm.
  New Jersey Pearson Education, Inc. 2003
• http//www.control.com/961186061/index_html
  (input from mult sources)
• http//www.futurestrust.org.nz/futuretimes/ft99-3/
  unemployment.html