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The "real" challenge technology presents isn't that it replaces workers, but rather displaces them.
The robots perform tasks that humans previously performed. The fear is that they are replacing human jobs, eliminating work in distribution centers and elsewhere in the economy. It is not hard to imagine that technology might be a major factor causing persistent unemployment today and threatening “more to come.”
Surprisingly, the managers of distribution centers and supply chains see things rather differently: in surveys they report that they can’t hire enough workers, at least not enough workers who have the necessary skills to deal with new technology. “Supply chain” is the term for the systems used to move products from suppliers to customers. Warehouse robots are not the first technology taking over some of the tasks of supply chain workers, nor are they even seen as the most important technology affecting the industry today.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/scarce-skills-not-scarce-jobs/390789/
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday April 29 2015, @07:34PM
Not only would this solve the job problem, it would also likely create a more loyal employee,
You assume that there is anyone in the company that knows a single thing about fixing the robots.
Often that's not true. If it breaks they call the manufacturer, or the installer, and wait for repairs, or replacement. You really can't afford to keep a person on staff to fix things that seldom (if ever) break. If they break frequently, its cheaper to buy a new one, or push that repair responsibility back to the manufacturer with a maintenance contract.
So maybe the jobs go to the maintenance contracts, and employees disappear. Or maybe the manufacturer engineers failure out of the system, and replace it with a much smaller preventative maintenance contract.
I've been on both sides of that paradigm.
I've seen jobs contracted out from under employees I worked with, including myself.
I've accepted contracts that I knew replaced full time workers.
Oddly, this latter category gave me no sleepless nights. We were able to easily handle the work contracted to us with less than a quarter of a full time equivalent. The prior full time employee had been sand bagging for years, yet his system documentation consisted only of a few post-it notes.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.