Despite worries that automation and the boom of e-commerce might cut jobs, several case studies across the United States are showing the opposite; that the current trends of automation might indeed serve to help job growth.
For example, when the e-commerce retailer Boxed opened an automated warehouse in Union, New Jersey, many people feared layoffs-after all, a robot can do for free what a person does for at least 8.44 per hour. However, something completely different happened. Workers found their jobs to be significantly less demanding than in the nearby manual warehouse in nearby Edison-instead of moving products across a factory floor, employees simply could stand at workstations while the products came to them in conveyer belts. And because the new system was so efficient, Boxed was able to accommodate a third shift to the work day. “We’re not looking to do the same work with half the people,” said Rick Zumpano, vice president for distribution at Boxed. “Since we’re growing, we need everyone.”
Why did automation boost jobs? Because of two reasons: the first is that automation boosts efficiency and the supply of the product or service, which enables the market to accommodate more jobs. The second is that every robot and automated task has a small army of coders, engineers, repairmen, and technicians, creating-you guessed it-even more jobs. This is nothing new-when the cotton gin was first invented in 1793, the end result was a glut of African slaves being imported across the Atlantic to work in cotton fields all across the south.
While this trend is on a small scale now, perhaps the growth of automation will drive more companies to invest in automated tasks. How could this effect the way blue and white-collar America works?
9 comments:
I think that as automation increases in both scope and capacity, blue-collar America will in a way grow yet change - I think there will be more jobs that could theoretically be viewed as "blue-collar," as pointed out in the review of the article, but that these jobs will also increasingly require higher education standards and a different skill set. I expect this skills set to begin to trend towards an ability to work with computers and automation, lessening the manual labor aspect of blue-collar work while at the same time requiring more training and skills to be used. This could be a bit of a relief for people, as there is a growing fear that automation and efficiency will lead to the loss of many jobs, and that robots will eventually displace human workers. As this article and Granger points out, while they may be displacing some jobs, new technology opens open even more, new jobs required to make sure everything works and runs smoothly.
Reading books like "Economics in One lesson" can explain why automation and technological growth in general ends up creating more jobs. When people save money on products, the extra money they have in their pockets afterwards goes towards other businesses. On top of that, the money the corporation saves enables them to invest in other parts of their business.
However, the jobs that are newly created are often more sophisticated than the jobs of the past. In the same way that farmers had to learn to use tractors instead of manually picking, people will have to learn the skills needed to perform in the workspace of the future (to answer you question).
It is clear that automation will create many more specialized and skill-based jobs like technicians, programmers, and engineers, but it is also true that it will put many of the labor-based individuals out of jobs. I agree with the fact that the number of jobs created is a net positive, and the increased efficiency will put more money into the economy and be in general beneficial to the economy. However, many individuals who are in labor jobs and are older, and therefore more reluctant to change, will be opposed to the automation as it will put them out of jobs and they will be forced to unwillingly adapt or lose their jobs.
I like how you brought up the fact that these automated systems call for the addition of many new jobs in the areas of engineering, coding, technology, etc. I think that the growth of automation will definitely lead to more jobs in multiple areas, specifically engineers, technicians, and computer scientists. Even though these jobs are definitely not considered blue collar right now, I have a feeling that they might be since more and more people are graduating from college with high level degrees, and as automation continues to grow, the demand for these workers will get even bigger, and I think that this might result in a great economic boost for many middle class families, however, it will be to the detriment of actual blue collar workers, who are losing their skill-lacking jobs on factory lines. I'm kind of split on this. Part of me thinks that for many of the blue collars, it's their fault for not getting a college education and investing in their own future. On the other hand, social and economic mobility are no easy feats, mainly due to where one grows up and what opportunities they have. In the end, there's nothing much anyone can do to stop the growth of automation, not even Trump trying to big industries back into the US, and I think that it is for the better.
What is being described is a growth of skilled labor jobs, that is, jobs that are available to those who are either 1) possessed of a college degree 2) trained in some form of technological/computer-based profession. However, for working-class families who do not intend to go to college and do not have access to computers in order to engage in training programs, jobs will continue to fade away. The growth of our educational system is not on par with the growth of technology in industry, and as such, working-class individuals are not being converted into capable industrial technicians at the same pace that unskilled labor jobs in industry are being converted into more advanced maintenance jobs.
I don't believe that the situation with the Boxed company is in any way representative of the future of industry. Sure, in the short term, unskilled labor jobs are becoming easier for those that engage in them. For example, in Amazon warehouses, as opposed to walking across the factory to pick up a box and put it on a conveyer belt, workers today are able to stand in a single spot, and robots bring boxes for them to place onto a conveyer belt. However, this simple motion is easily replicable by machine, and will soon be replicated, eliminating these easy jobs. As technology advances, more and more of these "simple" jobs will be eliminated, because it is simply more economically advantageous to do away with them.
Admittedly, as a company grows, the net number of people it employs objectively increases. This may create jobs, but then again, we haven't questioned the need for more skilled labor workers in our rapidly industrializing workforce. If we are talking about blue-collar jobs, the fact of the matter is that the mechanization of industry is inversely related to the number of jobs available to the working class.
Daniel, I'm going to have to partially disagree with your point about how the growth of technology and automation is going to have a serious negative effect the working class.
First, you're right in saying that the number of workers in a particular factory (for example) will go down. But this is only 'per factory'. As company's profit margins increase per factory, they will end up making more factories. Quick analogy: An Amazon shipping center that employed three people might now only employ one, but three other factories open up - because of the new profits - that also employ one. In fact, the one factory worker will get paid more than he/she would being one of three. These are working-class jobs being created, not jobs in the Amazon HQ.
This is supported by the numbers as well. Over the last three years, Amazon has increased the number of robots in its facilities from 1,400 to 45,000 but the rate at which it employs people hasn't changed.
https://www.theatlas.com/charts/rkk9vXMux
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-robot-army-has-grown-by-50-2017-1
Besides this, automation will create entirely new industries. Previous technological improvements like the combustion engine put horse coachmen out of business, but nobody could foresee that it would create McDonald's drive-thrus. This creative destruction has always brought us prosperity and there isn't a difference now. The Obama administration predicted in a 2016 report that automation could make jobs in supervising AI, reshaping infrastructure for self-driving cars, and maintaining new systems, but we honestly don't know. These industries are going to require a working-class.
I feel that even if machines aren't rapidly replacing factory workers, that's a common misconception and many blue collar workers may feel pressured by the evolving workplace. I kind of agree with what Daniel said about needing a higher education in order to complete these tech jobs, which would probably be the majority of new jobs created. At the same, though, materials have to be made and these factories will need to employ more people. So I think this trend towards automatons could help overall if it connects the need for blue collar workers in the factories and educated workers designing/implementing the machines.
I think that while automation can create more jobs, because automation takes over the physical or easier jobs, it will encourage people to strive for higher education, which I think is good. While it may be difficult for workers to adapt and adjust to higher standards at first, I think overall it is a good thing for our society to be more educated.
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