Impact of Technology on Labour

6 Key excerpts on "Impact of Technology on Labour"

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  New Directions in the Future of Work

  • Mónica Santana, Ramón Valle-Cabrera, Mónica Santana, Ramón Valle-Cabrera(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Emerald Publishing Limited

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 7 The Impact of Technology on the Present and the Future of Work and Skills Sergio Torrejón Pérez and Ignacio González Vázquez 1. Introduction Technological progress has broad-ranging implications for labour markets: it can destroy some jobs, but at the same time it can create others. And more impor-tantly, it can radically transform the content of many of our current jobs, poten-tially leading to a radical transformation of the world of work. These changes on the nature and the content of jobs and occupations entails important changes in the skills needed to perform them, with crucial implications for education sys-tems. Moreover, these changes also have consequences for the overall structure of jobs in a given economy. All these potential effects are treated in this chapter. Section 2 focusses on the impact of automation on jobs, in terms of destruction, transformation and crea-tion. We first focus on its destructive potential. New technologies are increasingly able to perform not only repetitive tasks, but also less predictable ones, such as retrieving information or recognising patterns. Thus, a large body of research has suggested that millions of jobs could be partially or totally replaced by these technologies at some point in the future. Yet, even if a machine is able to replace human labour from a purely technical perspective, this does not mean that it will actually happen. As shown below, the potential to automate a job ultimately depends on how work is organised: the more discrete, repetitive and predictable it is, the more susceptible to automation it becomes. This means that key attrib-utes of human labour, such as autonomy, sociability and creativity, remain the ultimate barrier to automation. In Section 2.2, we shift our attention to the trans-formative potential of technology. We do know that jobs are made up by bundles of tasks.

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  The Causes of Structural Unemployment

  Four Factors that Keep People from the Jobs they Deserve

  • Thomas Janoski, David Luke, Christopher Oliver(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Polity

    (Publisher)

  We will view this in three parts. First, we will outline how some disciplines and theories have looked at technology and unemployment. This has largely been a contentious literature and there is little agreement on the results other than that “people lose their jobs” in the short term. Second, we look at important changes in technology that have led to job losses, which can occur in a number of ways. One type of change in technology directly replaces a worker − a welding robot replacing a welder on an assembly line. Another change in technology transforms many industries simultaneously such that direct replacement is not always clear, since so many people are affected. For example, computers infuse many businesses so that it is unclear that any direct replacement has occurred, but business is nonetheless totally transformed (e.g., the web replacing newspapers or computers replacing physical files, resulting in the disappearance of file folders and bureaus). And finally, offshoring technology can move jobs to other countries with lower wages and infrastructural costs − the container ship industry allows manufactured goods to be shipped at very low costs back to the country that once produced them. These three technological forces – direct replacement, indirect replacement, and offshoring displacement – contribute to structural unemployment in the short-term no matter what their long-term effects might be with the uncertain investment of profits. And third, after the major sections of this chapter, we look at some direct evidence on the impact of computer technology on labor.

  Theories of Technology and Structural Unemployment

  A number of disciplines have looked at the impact of technology on the labor market, and we will consider economics, business, and sociology. There are four basic ways to frame technology that roughly correspond to these disciplinary approaches: (1) macro-process approaches that are typical of economics and adhere to mathematical modeling; (2) micro-process approaches as utilized by most business and organizational perspectives on firms, and their internal dynamics and interrelationship with external entities and processes; (3) Marxist approaches to technology that focus on management manipulation of technology; and (4) historical-institutional approaches that draw upon both macro- and micro-perspectives but attempt to engage the various other important variables that are integrally intertwined with the economy, labor, and society.3 Again, while there are some overlaps between these four approaches across disciplines, more often each of the various fields examines technological processes from its own disciplinary view, which determines the unit of analysis, scales of assessment, and methodological adherence to quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods.

  Economic theories

  Technology entered into this area with the exogenous and then the endogenous growth theories. First with exogenous growth, Robert Solow found that about 67 percent of economic growth is driven by capital and labor, and that the residual 33 percent of economic growth is driven by technological advances. Much of this neo-classical model was used by Edward Denison in Why Growth Rates Differ

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  The Global Information Society

  • William J. Martin(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In an age when computerization will continue to be a pervasive presence, the impact of technological change will not yield readily to generalized interpretations of a black and white nature. Different people, different workplaces and organizations will respond in different and unpredictable fashion to the application of similar technologies and systems. Indeed, to really begin to understand the social impact of information and communications technology, it is necessary to look first at the organizational and social settings into which these technologies are to be deployed. Issues of gender, and the occupational structures into which women workers tend to be locked are, for example, critical to the control and organization of work, most notably in white collar occupations.

  Other controversial dimensions relate to the use of computers for group supported work, either in the office or by means of teleworking, and for monitoring and measuring employee performance. This embraces the critical issue of the impact of new technology on the skills of employees, an aspect where both deskilling and upskilling can occur depending upon a wide variety of factors including the job, the employee, the workplace and the specific technology in use. Undoubtedly, the introduction of all such systems and particularly information systems, must be approached from the perspective of social design, which embraces the opinions and values of eventual users of the system, and which embodies recognition of the importance of the human and social infrastructure to the successful operation of any new system.

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  One area in which there is now growing interest is that which concerns the relationship between work time and leisure time. Several forecasters are predicting that the eventual outcome of current technological change will be a reduction of employment levels in all sectors of the economy, in white collar as well as blue collar occupations.

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  The more imaginative forecasters anticipate new arrangements for work organization such that society can be organized to leave time for individual autonomous activities consequent on a reduction of the time needed to be spent on the job and a sharing of socially necessary work among the greatest number of people.

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  Exactly what such arrangements would be and how they would be funded, remains unclear. Moreover, if modern societies are to abandon or, at least, seriously modify their attitudes to the work ethic, there will need to be major social and cultural adjustments for which little precedent exists.

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  Women and Technology

  • Urs E. Gattiker, Rosemarie S. Stollenmaier, Urs E. Gattiker, Rosemarie S. Stollenmaier(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  The impact of technological change on the work of women has been studied in many occupations, but little attention has been given to the effects of such change on women laboratory workers. This is surprising in view of the close relationship between science and technology, and the dependence of science industry upon the effective combination of technology and human resources. Further, since laboratory science is at the leading edge of technology, women laboratory workers are more likely to encounter technological changes than their counterparts in other occupational groups. This exploratory study is intended to investigate the impact of technological change on the work of women employed in laboratory-based organizations. Literature Review Impact of Technological Change on the Work of Women Although to date there appears to have been only limited research done on the impact of the introduction of new technology on women's work in the laboratory, 2 In the context of this study, the scientific/laboratory worker is involved (either in a technical or supervisory capacity) in carrying out scientific analyses in order to accumulate scientific knowledge. He or she typically has a post-secondary science qualification, such as a university degree, diploma, or other technical qualification. In this paper, a laboratory-based organi-zation is one in which a major component of the organization's work involves laboratory research, development, or production. 96 Lee W. H. Murray there have been numerous studies of women's experiences of technological change in other occupations, such as clerical work ( L i f f , 1990), insurance ( Appelbaum, 1987), banking (Sano, 1988), manufacturing ( Bradley , 1979), and communica-tions ( Hacker, 1990). Since these studies may reveal issues which have some parallels in the laboratory, they are reviewed briefly here.

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  Labour Law and the Gig Economy

  Challenges posed by the digitalisation of labour processes

  • Jo Carby-Hall, Lourdes Mella Méndez, Jo Carby-Hall, Lourdes Mella Méndez(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  It inculcates technologies and trends such as robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality, cloud computing, etc. and is transforming the future of work and way of living profoundly. 3 Many jobs and ways of working will certainly change, and while some will become old, others will be created to make the life of the working class easier. There are also studies that suggest that with digitalisation there exists a process of job destruction and construction, which usually affects the traditional businesses and industries. Undoubtedly, the impacts of this revolution will be seen not only in the labour market, but also on society as a whole. 4 This is main reason why the future of work and labour still remains unsure, in addition to the speed and spread of technological change that is unparalleled. 1 “What is the Fourth Industrial Revolution?”, World Economic Forums, Available at https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/what-is-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/ [Accessed on 1 st Feb, 2019]. 2 “Impacts of digitization on employment and social security of employees”, Pavel Kohout, Robot Asset Management, SICAV, Marcela Palíšková, Faculty of business administration, VŠE, Prague, Available at: https://www.Digitalization%20of%20LM/1_IMPACTS_OF_DIGITALIZATION_2017.pdf [Accessed on 1 st Feb, 2019]. 3 Ibid. 4 “Emerging technologies and the future of work in India”, ILO, June 2018. Digitalisation and digitisation: the interrelationship Digitalisation can broadly be conceived as mixing virtual technologies into everyday life to make life easier. 5 Whereas, digitisation is a process where digital versions of physical versions are created, such as documents, pictures, etc. which makes it easily rectifiable and displayable with minimum human intervention. 6 Digitalisation refers to transforming operations and tasks with the help of innovative digital technologies and adopting a “smart” approach to stay ahead of the curve

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  Decent Work in the Digital Age

  European and Comparative Perspectives

  • Tamás Gyulavári, Emanuele Menegatti, Tamás Gyulavári, Emanuele Menegatti(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Digitalisation is only a further step in this continuum. 38 1 See CB Frey, The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2019). 2 More in general, see B Keller, ‘Interest representation and industrial relations in the age of digitalization – an outline’ (2020) 27 Industrielle Beziehungen 255. 3 The Impact of Automation and Robotics on Collective Labour Relations: Meeting an Unprecedented Challenge EDOARDO ALES I. Introduction The relationship between automation, robotics and labour has been investigated thoroughly by all the branches of scholarship that deal with labour. The literature is immense. It touches the different angles of the subject, mainly focusing on the impact of technology on work and how to mitigate its negative consequences on workers. Some studies, however, highlight the beneficial effects of technology in eliminating monotonous, dangerous and heavy jobs or tasks, as they can be performed, even more efficiently, by machines or robots controlled by artificial intelligence (AI). 1 Nevertheless, room for reflection on some particularly sensitive issues still remains. These are, in my perception, the competition between technologies and humans, and the way in which entrepreneurs’ decision-making processes to introduce or enhance technologies can be influenced by workers. Both points affect the collective dimensions of labour relationships, which is the topic of this chapter. 2 As is well known, collective labour (or industrial) relations primarily aim at regulat- ing working conditions homogeneously, in order to avoid the race to the bottom that is likely to characterise the individual negotiation between an employer and her employ- ees. The wider the application of collective regulation to employers, the lower the risk of individuals and groups already covered by more favourable (and expensive) agreements being dumped.

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