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posted by girlwhowaspluggedout on Tuesday March 04 2014, @03:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the ya-tvoy-sluga-ya-tvoy-rabotnik dept.

regift_of_the_gods writes:

"A study that was published last year by two Oxford researchers predicted that 47 percent of US jobs could be computerized within the next 20 years, including both manual labor and high cognition office work. The Oxford report presented three axes to show what types of jobs were relatively safe from being routed by robots and software; those requiring high levels of social intelligence (public relations), creativity (scientist, fashion designer), or perception and manipulation (surgeon) were less likely to be displaced.

This further obsolescence of jobs due to automation may have already begun. The Financial Times describes an emerging wave of products and services from algorithmic-intensive, data-rich tech startups that will threaten increasing numbers of jobs including both knowledge and blue collar workers. The lead example is Kensho, a startup founded by ex-Google and Apple engineers that is building an engine to estimate the impact of real or hypothetical news items on security prices, with questions posed in a natural language. Specialist knowledge workers in many other fields, including law and medicine, could also be at risk. At lower income levels, the dangerous are posed by increasingly agile and autonomous robots, such as those Amazon uses to staff some of its fulfillment warehouses.

 
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:05PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:05PM (#10708)

    These predictions keep getting made, but somehow we find new work for the supposed millions who will be put out of a job. For instance, in Britain now, more people are employed than have ever been employed in the country's history.

    There are also more people that aren't employed than ever before. The better number to look at is the Labor Force Participation Rate [stlouisfed.org], which as you can see is well below its 1990 peak. If the population increases 5%, but the work force only 1%, that means that indeed production is more efficient, because businesses have found a way to meet the needs of those additional people without as much additional labor.

    Instead there are more people working longer hours than ever. What happened to 20 hour work weeks?

    What happened was that businesses discovered it was cheaper to hire one person and force them to work 60 hours per week than it was to hire 3 people each working 20 hours per week. In the US, that's because of health insurance, but in the UK with its NHS I have no idea why that would be the case.

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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by gringer on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:41PM

    by gringer (962) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:41PM (#10805)

    What happened was that businesses discovered it was cheaper to hire one person and force them to work 60 hours per week than it was to hire 3 people each working 20 hours per week. In the US, that's because of health insurance, but in the UK with its NHS I have no idea why that would be the case.

    Getting more people in is expensive. There is a (comparative to salary) huge cost involved in hiring someone and dealing with people leaving (i.e. staff turnover), and additional per-employee costs over the course of employment. As long as overtime (assuming the workers can get away with that) costs less than the overheads associated with an extra person, companies will choose the single worker.

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    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 04 2014, @07:25PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @07:25PM (#10890)

      Don't forget, if the existing employee has proven competence, then it's safer to get him to do the extra work rather than take a risk on someone else who may or may not be competent. Sure, you'll burn out your employee faster, but since we only care about the next quarter anyway, who cares? By the time the employee has had it and quits or has a heart attack, that'll be some other CEO's problem.