In the UK, there is much talk about many people losing their jobs to technology. Huge businesses such as Tesco’s and Marks & Spencer’s have gone through an unforseen revolution. Employees who once climbed from shopfloor to boardroom are now kept in place by the microchip the Sunday Times has reported.
Many companies now rely on automated stock systems and online shopping. The aviation industry has also enjoyed such benefits of technology. This is because all passengers need to do is surf on the internet for the best flight deals and book their tickets online. It is true technology like any other breakthrough in life has a good and bad side. It all depends on the way you look at it. This is because the most technological innovations cut jobs in one sector, while creating jobs in another.
The British Institute for Employment Research, predicts that jobs at the top and bottom will keep on growing. There will be 21% more professionals by 2012 than there were in 2002 and 48% more people working in customer services. But the middle ground will carry on shrinking: there will be 24% fewer secretaries and 31% fewer skilled metalworkers. This means that while the middle jobs would decline , technology would create more jobs at the top and bottom of the career ladder.
Can technology really take away our jobs?
I think outsourcing is the current threat to most jobs, but automated systems is a close second, while being able to remove some people with automated systems, it will also create jobs required for design, production, implementing, and maintenance of those systems. So basically what what it implies is that the middle class is going to continue to shrink in modernized nations. And although the upper class will be growing, it will continue to be outpaced by the growth of the lower class.
Others hold the view that Automation will set us free. Technology exsits now that will allow everyone to do only the more noble occupations or preoccupation, then again free time is too much to deal with for a lot of people. So maybe it's not a good thing to free people from the mundane.
My suggestion therefore, to anyone replaced by a machine is to learn how to fix said machine. At the end of the day if the only contribution you can make to society is uneconomic then you should probably look for another way to contribute