As technology advances at lightning speed, many worry that it will entail the loss of jobs.
It is reiterated that young people will be unable to find jobs as robot technology will replace the need for some people entering the labour market.
A lack of understanding how the economy works has led to an unnerving and futile concern about the advances of technology. This concern is nothing new and has been an ongoing fear since mankind began throwing rocks.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that many clerical workers will find their jobs at risk. In a paper, Karl Frey and Michael Osborne of Oxford University find that nearly half of U.S. workers will be highly susceptible to automation over the next 20 years. However, a new working paper by Melanie Arntz, Terry Gregory and Ulrich Zierahn of the Centre for European Economic Research has taken a more optimistic point of view. Looking into more detailed data, they found that many jobs were bundles of tasks, only some of which machines can easily handle, with some being too complicated. This means that experts, not machines, are needed.
A great deal of planning for fantastic innovative materials, for everything we use currently and will need in the future, from health care to environmental concerns, requires face-to-face interaction. History shows people worried needlessly that automation will drive many to a jobless future when in fact automation actually increases the need for human input.
Importantly, the education needed to fill these jobs is becoming ever more labour intensive. Actually more apprenticeship and co-op training programs are much needed today as employers complain of skill shortages.
To fly a plane some tasks would be taken over by machines, but the great expansion of tasks out of necessity means more expertise is required. Clearly, for instance, air conditioners became more automated but the tasks involved in assessing the climate called for more human skills and observation.
Taxes are becoming much more complicated. Anyone dealing with an auditing firm has learned that people are essential to supplement robotic work. For this columnist and others to ensure that some income information could be passed on tax-free, meant literally pages of detailed research by individuals. When automatic teller machines were introduced and cut costs, cashier positions rose in numbers as banks were able to open new branches.
A review of economic history proves that progress will mean that technology will help our economy to grow and unfolding events will not make human work obsolete. However, it does make it more essential than ever that with education advances, we are able to cope with technological changes.
It is amazing to observe how well adaptable youngsters have learned to utilize changes in new devices, putting older workers to shame. It is important to note that youth will be fully utilized notwithstanding fears to the contrary.