automation

A technology revolution is fast replacing human beings with machines in virtually every sector and industry in the global economy. Already, millions of workers have been permanently eliminated from the economic process, and whole work categories and job assignments have shrunk, been restructured, or disappeared. Global unemployment has now reached its highest level since the great depression of the 1930s. More than 800 million human beings are now unemployed or underemployed in the world. That figure is likely to rise sharply between now and the turn of the century as millions of new entrants into the workforce find themselves without jobs.
Corporate leaders and mainstream economists tell us that the rising unemployment figures represent short-term "adjustments" to powerful market-driven forces that are speeding the global economy in a new direction. They hold out the promise of an exciting new world of high-tech automated production, booming global commerce, and unprecedented material abundance. Millions of working people remain sceptical. In the United States, Fortunemagazine found that corporations are eliminating more than 2 million jobs annually. While some new jobs are being created in the US economy, they are in the low-paying sectors and are usually temporary.
This pattern is occurring throughout the industrialised world. Even developing nations are facing increasing technological unemployment as transnational companies build state-of-the-art high-tech production facilities, letting go millions of cheap labourers who can no longer compete with the cost efficiency, quality control, and speed of delivery achieved by automated manufacturing.
With current surveys showing that less than five percent of companies around the world have even begun the transition to the new machine culture, massive unemployment of a kind never before experienced seems all but inevitable in the coming decades. Reflecting on the significance of the transition taking place, the distinguished Nobel laureate economist Wasilly Leontief warned that with the introduction of increasingly sophisticated computers, "The role of humans as the most important factor of production is bound to diminish in the same way that the role of horses in agricultural production was first diminished and then eliminated by the introduction of tractors."
In all three key employment sectors - agriculture, manufacturing, and services, machines are quickly replacing human labour and promise an economy of near automated production by the mid-decades of the twenty-first century.

"Retail jobs losing to automation." UPI NewsTrack 2011: General OneFile. Web. 4 June 2014.
Chen, Wenzhe. Automation Equipment And Systems : Selected Peer Reviewed Papers From The 3Rd International Conference On Manufacturing Science And Engineering (ICMSE 2012), 27-29 March, 2012, Xiamen, China. Durnten-Zurich, Switzerland: Trans Tech Publications, 2012. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 4 June 2014.
Lee, James H. "Hard at work in the jobless future: jobs are disappearing, but there's still a future for work. An investment manager looks at how automation and information technology are changing the economic landscape and forcing workers to forge new career paths beyond outdated ideas about permanent employment." The Futurist 2012: 32. Business Insights: Essentials. Web. 4 June 2014.
"Automation and the threat to jobs; Policy implications for societies need to be addressed." The Financial Times 2014: Business Insights: Essentials. Web. 4 June 2014.
Akst, Daniel, Sarah Carr, and Scott Winship. "Where Have All The Jobs Gone?." The Wilson Quarterly 3 (2013): Literature Resource Center. Web. 4 June 2014.
MCCUE, DAN. "Picking Up The Pace On Warehouse Automation." World Trade: WT100 25.11 (2012): 30. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 4 June 2014.
Megginson, Leon C. "Automation: Our Greatest Asset--Our Greatest Problem?." Academy Of Management Journal 6.3 (1963): 232-244. Business Source Premier. Web. 4 June 2014.
Rader, Louis T. "Automation Over The Years." Vital Speeches Of The Day 47.6 (1981): 166. Poetry & Short Story Reference Center. Web. 4 June 2014.