Essay on the Impact of Automation on Employment

Automation is a process through which technology and applications are used to carry out the work efficiently and reliably instead of being carried out by humans manually ('What is Automation?', ISA, 2020). Automation helps to efficiently carry out repetitive task which otherwise needed to be done by human manually and by doing so automation helps to save time and cuts down the cost of production or project. The use of automation is diverse in today’s world from defense and information technology to manufacturing and transport (Strawn, 2016). Automation can be done in various form, be it robotics to software products which helps to increase productivity and also in cost and time management ('What is Automation?', Techopedia, 2020).

In 1946 the word ‘automation’ was first used in automobile industry while referring to increasing number of automatic devices and mechanic (Groover, 2019). With advancement in technologies now the use of automation has increased drastically. With the Industrial Revolution during 1800’s automation was used to increase productivity within the factory, for e.g. mechanized cotton spinning and machine to produce continuous sheets of paper which is called a Fourdrinier and it is still used till date (Strawn, 2017). Be it to create effective defense system during war or to increase productivity in a factory automation has played a big part in our history ('A Brief History of Automation - Product Handling Concepts', 2016).

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It’s not unknown that automation has taken over a lot of jobs and as a result many people have been unemployed because of it but on the other hand automation is also creating new jobs. The question is if jobs created because of adaption of automation is more than the jobs lost to it and the job created is viable enough or not. For example, automation replaces job that was previously carried out manually by person and those people consists of majority of middle-class working people (Bowes et al., 1993). Now implementation of automation has created some jobs as well but to carry out those jobs you need to have certain qualification and skills that the people who lost their job might not have. As the technologies continues to advance and computers become more and more efficient and powerful it is more than likely that companies and industries will replace more and more people with computers because of its reliability and efficiency (Autor, 2015). The age of robotics has finally come as more and more country are investing and using robotics to different field of works from medicine to agriculture. One fine example of such is how UK is preparing strategy of £160 million for agritech. The focus of the strategy is to promote use of robotics application in the farm. The has been already few implementations of robotics in agriculture such as a robotic ladybird which is used to detect the pests present in the field to robotic rice planter which was made by Japan (Thompson & Dahling, 2019). Also, big business such as Amazon has implemented robotic solutions which was created by Kiva Systems to pick, pack and deliver any items that is ordered by costumers as a result they are able to provide fast services such as same day deliveries and such (Balch, 2020). If we divulge in detail about current impact of automation then we can say that it has had as much positive impact as negative impacts but we can say that in the future the implementation of automation is increasing rapidly with the development in artificial intelligence which has again pushed the development and implementation of automation through robotics and other technologies such as self-driving car (Weber, 2018).

In this essay I am going to address the issue of job automation and its impact on employment rate as well as if automation is really the future we are headed for, also debate the positive and negative impact of automation economically and socially and evaluate the both sides point of view regarding automation.

Issues Around Automation

Ocado which is British online based supermarket, has started testing robotic arm prototypes to save the production cost and increase their operating efficiency and revenue (Gray, 2017). As a result of Ocado adapting to robotics and machineries for automation many factory workers had lost their jobs although Ocado isn’t the only business to do so. Many businesses such as Amazon even hospitals and law firms have started depending on automations through bots and apps as a result cutting down on cost by hiring less people (Dodel & Mesch, 2020). Another issue is the fact that that automation although effective won’t be as impactful as humans when it comes to interaction. Amazon has started testing and using its drone delivery system, which is more efficient, but it might not be as much reliable as if a technical issue happens the drone might not even reach the destination. When it comes to automation data security is a big issue as if there is no person maintaining it then data breach might happen (Biggins, 2018).

Problem and Opportunities of Automation

According to a research report it suggests that around 35% of employees in UK are likely to lose their job to machines and other automations (Gray, 2017). Automations has been happening for a long time now but what’s different now is the rate that automation is happening and the capabilities that technological advances have brought for example augmented reality to artificial intelligence. One of the major problems is that the job replaced by machines in turn create new jobs but those jobs will require much more advance skill set then the lost ones so as a result the skills we learn from our schools will not be good enough so the education system will have to change to carter to the new jobs that’s being created out there. On the other hand, similarly, atomization can be form of opportunities as some jobs can’t ever be completely automized as a result the way of working might change according to how much of that work is automized but a worker will always be there to make sure the work is being carried out as it should be and operate the software or machines which helps to automize the jobs. Which means although people won’t lose their job but the way the work is carried out will change for better (Gray, 2017). Although it is said that with automation taking over the job new job will be formed but according to a Washington Post report there hasn’t been any new job created over the decade while the automation in a lot of working sectors is growing each year (Elkins, 2015). Other opportunity is the fact that the money saved by companies by adapting to automation can be spend back to the business providing best working conditions for the employees and increasing wages for their employee which will motivate them to work more efficiently and be more productive ('Is Automation the Problem….Or the Solution?', Ayehu, 2018).

Possible Solution Regarding Automation

Since the job automation will eventually create a divide as in people who have a lot of income and people who very little income. This will create an unbalanced economic society for this reason it is important to consider universal basic income for the future as people should be earning certain income or getting enough money to support themselves (Elkins, 2015). The other possible solution is actively researching and creating jobs that requires social and communications skills as human communications and social relationship can’t ever be replicated by machines or through automation (Agar, 2019). Retraining the current employees is another solution to jobs lost through automation. Providing training to use the current employees even after adaption of automaton can help tackle the issue of unemployment. This also saves businesses money as the people would already be aware of how everything works around in the business and all they have to get used to is using the automation tools that are provided (Ward, 2017).

Ethical Dilemmas of Automation

A major ethical concern is that if all the big business or fields that require manual labor start adapting to automation in form of machines or software then eventually there will be less and less need for manual job handling as a result employment rate will decrease gradually over the years (Torresen, 2018). Another ethical question is if the machines or software used for automation will make an ethical decision, for e.g. recently self-driving or automated vehicles are being tested and even used at some part of the world, but would that vehicle be able to make an ethical decision at a critical moment (McCulloch, 2019). The data collection through automated apps also raises issues regarding privacy as well as the scope of data breach. In the age of artificial intelligence which takes automation to the advanced level keeping the data collected secure is a problem within itself (Bossmann, 2016).

Conclusion

In summary, there are many issues revolving around automation and employment rate but at the same time it has yet to have a big impact as it’s still in growing phase and that there are still opportunities that job automation creates which if used effectively will help overcome the problem it creates of employment. We need more laws and regulation regarding to new technologies such as artificial intelligence which will be a big push towards more automation of the job not only to the middle-class factory workers but to also for the white-collar office workers. As unemployment rise there will be a big difference between working middle class people to higher and more skilled workers and to match those pay disparity, we should think about universal basic income for the future. In conclusion, the job automation is currently in rise, but we still have time to think and strategize possible solution to the problem to as when eventually the employment rate will go down significantly because of job automation.

References

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