Technology a bigger threat than offshoring
Tuesday, 29 June 2004
Research firm, Strategy Analytics, have said that new technology destroys far more jobs than offshoring ever will.
The first wave of job-losses to computer technology occurred in the early 1990s, with robotics transforming manufacturing industries and lessening the need for workers. One hundred billion dollars was spent on such systems last decade, increasing companies' bottom lines but costing 10m jobs, according to the firm.
In the second wave, support jobs such as customer-service, helpdesk and directory assistance will be replaced by machines. Strategy Analytics expects large numbers of jobs to disappear over the next few years as people are replaced with computer systems. They expect people to find it increasingly hard to find well-paid jobs.
"(Technology) will take the job growth out of the industries that the [US]government has said are good places to develop employment," Strategy Analytics president, Harvey Cohen told TechWeb News. "So we've raised the question, have they thought this problem through properly?"
Telecom firms' attempts to replace human-assisted directory assistance with machine-assisted is a good example.
"That sounds like progress, except the person who had that job, which didn't pay badly, doesn't have a job anymore," Cohen said of the trend.
The firm says that the fuss over offshoring is a distraction from the true threat to jobs posed by new technology.
"Looking forward, we don't really see the big threat in the long run being outsourcing to India," Cohen said. "We see the real threat from outsourcing to intelligent capital."
Of course, Luddites calling for an end to "work destroying technology" is a constant theme of human society. History shows us that the long-term outcome from introducing more productive technology is an increase in the overall well-being of everybody.
If Mr Cohen's intention is to get tech workers to rally behind him in trying to reduce the flow of new technology, I think he's going to have an uphill battle. After all, introducing such technology is kind-of the point of our existence - isn't it?
Read the full story at IT News.
Paul Knapp (editor@brainbox.com.au)
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Still not thinking the problem throughHaving been a robotics & automation specialist and now working in IT, I understand how people feel about technology but like outsourcing, it's here to stay! The issue I'm seeing is that we are giving out IP to other companies and countries. Since when has this been a good idea? Manufacturing has learnt this the hard way so why are we now doing the same with IT? Maybe we should all start looking at history and learning from it! Technology has been changing our environment for hundreds (if not thousands) of years and the same mistakes are beening made over and over again! Shaun, 06/30/2004 09:08:43 PM
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