Marie Kane
It’s no secret that technology is slowly taking over the workforce. Between assembly line workers being replaced with robots and even cashiers at McDonald’s, we can’t be sure if any job is really safe, but contrary to popular belief, there is an upside to these technological advancements. From a purely business standpoint, there’s no reason to keep human workers when robots are available to do the job just as well. Technology lowers the cost of production. Although it may be more expensive at first, technology is a one time cost that doesn’t require hourly wages like human workers do.
Furthermore, technology makes production more efficient by minimizing the time it takes to make a product, and creating more goods than an actual human in any given time. However, producers need to be sure they don’t produce a surplus to avoid losing money instead of making money. As long as producers know when to shut off their machines production will be just fine. The increasing amount of technology in businesses actually correlated to economic growth. There are jobs that are replaced by technology, but there are also jobs that are born through technology. The graph to the left shows how many jobs technology has helped create. When computers crash someone needs to be there to fix them and it takes a specific set of skills to fix high tech robots, the challenge of technology creates jobs as much as it gets rid of them.Although, some older workers may become discouraged when they lose their job to a robot. These individuals may not be able to keep up with current technology and make give up looking for a job altogether. Although it may appear that robots are stealing jobs, in reality they’re better for the economy because they do jobs that no one enjoys doing. The robots create jobs in IT and are more efficient and cost less in the long run than regular workers.
I think mechanization of labor is a good example of the cost-minimizing input rule. When a company has two choices--hire laborers or buy machines--they must consider both the price of the input and the output of that input. However, since marginal utility diminishes, inputs that may have a high initial output like machines may suffer from diminishing returns as more machines cause a larger possibility of mechanical failure. This is one reason why human workers are still financially viable, even if their labor is associate with a higher marginal resource cost.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how you dictate so many benefits of technology, however the biggest concern in my opinion with workers being replaced with technology is the structural unemployment they will face. While it is better than cyclical unemployment due to a recession, workers and still out of jobs and their skills are no longer profitable as their skills are useful in a dead industry. One example I often think of with structural unemployment is Travel Agents. Before the internet to plan a trip you needed a travel agent to help you get in touch with hotels, and to find flights for you. However, with the internet being so accessible, travel agents are not as widely sought after for trips unless you may be planning for a large party or have never traveled before. Overall I agree technology is a better solution from a business standpoint because it's one less worker to pay, and schedule. But in the long run, we need jobs for people to ensure our economy stays running.
ReplyDeleteTechnology is important for economic growth as technological progress will increase aggregate supply of output permanently in the long-run. Although some technology can replace workers, most technological advancements are used in conjuction with a human workers in order to increase productivity, thus increasing aggregate supply of output as well. These tech advancements are allowing more products to be made faster and at a cheaper cost. This allows our countries real GDP to rise, perhaps increasing quality of life, as well. This is why countries with the most developed technologies are often at an advantage economically. Technology innovation within the US should be a primary goal for the production industries as it is undeniable that technological advances will be sought after worldwide, thus giving the US leverage and power when it comes to resources.
ReplyDeleteTechnology may eliminate individual firm's jobs, increasing their unemployment rate, but as a whole, it can actually increase new job opportunities. People are needed to manufacture and maintain new machinery as well as market and sell them. This benefits not only the technology industry but also the economy as a whole, as GDP will increase because of increased efficiency. However, all these improvements in the economy come at the expense of the individual fired workers. They are now stuck in structural unemployment. This can become long-term and lead to them becoming discouraged workers if their skills become unnecessary and are mass replaced by machines. If they had the money, they could go back to school to learn a new skill, which would improve both the education industry as well as whatever field they choose to pursue. However, unfortunately, it is more likely they do not have the money or time to return to school. Thus, technology is definitely beneficial as a whole into the future, but for the individual in the present, it is a frightening reality.
ReplyDeleteTechnology is taking over major parts of production. I agree with the statement that it eliminates jobs previously owned by humans, but I disagree with the statement that the new jobs in IT and tech innovations replace those lost jobs. I don’t disagree with the massive increase in job opportunities for the IT and Tech industries, that is quite inevitable and apparent. The jobs created to innovate the robots and technology don’t directly replace jobs taken by the technology. The jobs provided by increasing technology require a much different set of skills, background in technology and programming. Workers who lose their jobs due to technological advancements find themselves at a disadvantage because they carry a skill set that may be no longer needed. For the time being, there will need to be human workers working alongside robotic coworkers, but the lost jobs are not so easily replaced.
ReplyDeleteTechnology is taking over the economy. It creates and breaks many different jobs. There are new machines being made and created every day but not all of them are successful. The ones that are make it far by being used in office buildings as everyday things and they are also used in huge factories. No matter what technology is always going to be becoming better, creating jobs and also taking some away.
ReplyDeleteAlthough technology is important for our future, in both production and society, I feel as though filling all the spots for human workers with robots wouldn’t be the best idea. First off, where will these people go if their occupation gets filled by a robot? Even though technology has had many positive impacts on our economy, this aspect would most likely worsen our economy due to the amount of people who would become layed off. We just have to make sure that there is a balance between the amount of jobs that technology is creating vs the amount they are taking away.
ReplyDeleteTechnology is an ever growing industry that is apart of our way of life, but I do not believe that it can always be good for industries. With technology there are often malfunction or other glitches that can occur. I also do not know if replacing human jobs with robots will be beneficial to our society as a whole but technology will keep growing and we will have to wait and see where it takes us.
ReplyDeleteTechnology can be quite the controversial topic when it comes to jobs and productivity. Robots are definitely more efficient than the average person, maybe even more so than a whole group of people, but technology can also be less consistent. A valid argument is that lower quality technology would malfunction more than a person would make mistakes. However, errors in robots and other technological advancements can create jobs - yet another controversy. Advanced technology in this modern age is most likely one of the leading causes of unemployment, or more specifically, structural unemployment. Despite the popular belief that technology is taking over the labor market though, many statistics actually show that it is creating more jobs than it is destroying.
ReplyDeleteWe see it on the news everyday, new technology that decides to take over our nation. Whether technology is a good or bad item, is debatable. I agree that technology has progressed to make robot like machines to do human jobs, more efficiently and faster. This has progressed our economy immensely and has caused many people to lose their jobs. You mentioned that it helps people gain jobs when something goes wrong with the machines/robots, and if that’s the case who’s going to do the work of the robot? This is often something we don’t think about. W think technology has little flaws, but what happens when all those machines/robots breakdown? Do we hire more people to fix them AND hire people to do the job in the meantime? How much is this going to cost? Then what happens when they are fixed? Technology in this case is the problem, where we will see a future occurrence of people losing their jobs and people gaining jobs, causing an undecided case of whether technology is good, or bad.
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