The Technology Impacts on Jobs

With the world rapidly evolving and so many technological advancements emerging, no doubt technology has improved the standard of living and created employment opportunities for some individuals.

Although there has been a recurrent fear that these technological advancements will lead to mass unemployment. A lot of people in certain jobs already feel threatened by the fact that technological advancement would be the cause of unemployment in the near future.

Many businesses/ companies have begun to introduce high-end technologies into their business to improve efficiency which would lead to higher productivity and also high profit. Advancements in information technology, robotics, and other promising technologies emerging out of science offer the promise of increased productivity and therefore economic growth in the years to come.

But while technology has come to make life easier and is improving production and efficiency in organizations, it has begun to create problems for employees and has become a threat to job security. Technology has had not only a positive impact on jobs but also a negative one. This article focuses on the negative impacts of technology on jobs.

For example, ATMs popularly known as automated teller machines have replaced some bank jobs. Certain individuals were in the past handling the giving out of money to customers, before the invention of ATMs which has made the job redundant. The new wave of technologies like automation and artificial intelligence is a threat to so many jobs.

A lot of machines and automation are replacing low-skilled workers. Lots of companies are already opting to replace human labor with technology because of the efficiency and high productive nature of technology. Failure for them to replace human labor with technology is equal will see them losing out, due to the high competition from other companies that use technology.

Technical advancements have forced and are still forcing people to update their knowledge to remain relevant in the job market. This can be so overwhelming for some to balance work and personal life. According to reports, technology has already replaced 90 percent of the jobs that humans do, from customer care, filling papers, factory workers, etc.

Low-skilled workers are those greatly affected by these technological innovations, jobs such as switchboard operators, mail sorters, etc, have fallen drastically or even gone into extinction because of the invention of technologies that replaced human efforts. For example, by investing in industrial dishwashing machines, restaurants would no longer see the need to employ a human dishwasher. Fewer people now work in car factories than in the last century.

Most car factories now routinely use machines to lose, repair, and paint body parts, which has seen the reduction of human effort in car factories. In China, a restaurant uses robots to deliver a fully automated dining and cooking experience for customers. At food restaurant, robotic arms prepare fast food after they are programmed to follow recipes for making noodles and stir-fry dishes.

A large number of economists believe that technology enhances productivity and creates wealth in the society. Although there have been less dramatic changes created by technology in clerical and professional services.

Conclusion

Although technology has come to make life easy, those greatly affected due to job loss are at the losing end of it. They will now be forced to learn other high-income skills to remain relevant. In these times of rapid technological advancements, it is reasonable for anyone who feels threatened, especially low-skilled workers to ensure they don’t wait till they are finally laid off from their jobs before they begin to learn other skills.

Technology has come to stay, and with more advancements taking place, more people will be out of jobs, except those who have deemed it fit to move with the flow.