Decline Of Assembly Line Jobs

Robots can effect employment in a negative way,as said by the author Kelly “It may be hard to believe… 70 percent of today’s occupation will likewise be replaced by automation...even you will have your job taken away by machines”(Kelly Page.300), this quote comes to show the negative aspect of robots taking over the world in the near

In today’s America, with robots on the rise, many people are feeling as if machines are threatening their jobs, and therefore their income, way of life, and basic stability. This is not an unreasonable fear. In 2013, Carl Frey and Michael Osborne with the University of Oxford predicted at as many as half the jobs in the United States could be automated within the next twenty years (Frey and Osborne). Even in the 1930s, economists such as John Maynard Keynes, the creator of Keynesian economics, predicted that technological developments could create economic climate that allows for a 15-hour work week with plenty of free time for the average American worker by the year 2030 (Thompson). The American workforce is shifting towards this prediction

Recently, many more Australians have found themselves jobless as robots and heartless machines replaced them, and it is predicted that this trend is set to continue. Research has shown that in a mere eight years, 40 percent of Australian jobs could be lost to machines, which equates to roughly 5 million jobs, it’s even been dubbed" a new kind of industrialisation". the effects of automation on the labour force are obviously large scale. Remote companies are most at risk in Australia as they have a high likelihood of experiencing a 60% job loss. Predictions state that in the next 10 to 15 years, 70% of companies are expected to go digital. This is already evident in some sectors such as banking, with the use of internet banking and ATM’s as well as in supermarkets using self-serve checkouts, and at airports with the vast majority of airlines switching to self-service check in kiosks. The high rates of productivity that machines have make them so much cheaper. One example of this is the fact that a bricklaying robot can lay 1000 bricks an hour, in comparison the average bricklayer can only achieve half of this amount in the same time

In an age where technology is so advanced that robots replace humans in the workplace, it is no surprise that increasingly fewer Americans are considered full-time employees. While proponents of advancement argue that technology adds a high level job for every low level job it takes away, low class manufacturing jobs will not be the only newly-automated jobs. Due to rapid advancement, computers are projected to be one thousand times more powerful in the 2030s than computers today (McChesney and Nichols, 2016, 246). With these improvements, no human’s job is safe.

The debate over whether robots are helping or hurting the workplace is more heated than ever. Advances in technology are soaring thus making an increase in the use of robots in the workplace more and more commonplace. Some believe the use of robots in the workplace can never totally result in the loss of jobs, but due to the fact that robots have invaded the workplace environment, many people fear this indicates replacement of human jobs. Although advancement in technology of robotics and artificial intelligence may offer precision, productivity, efficiency and flexibility, the loss of human jobs will be devastating to the many people who depend on their jobs to make a living and provide for their families.

Henry Ford, an American industrialist proved, not only to America but to the world that a car can be affordable to the so called, “Everyday Man”. “Henry Ford did not invent the car; he produced an automobile that was within the economic reach of the average American” (Sorensen 1). Subsequently, Henry Ford’s assembly lines were used in World War II to make equipment for the army. His car company, Ford, still produces one of the most durable and most cost effective car on the planet. In fact, every big car franchise today uses Henry Ford’s one hundred year old assembly line in order to manufacture safe and efficient transportation for everyone. Seeing that, Henry Ford’s moving assembly line has grown more complex because the parts and variety of vehicles being built continue to evolve. As a matter of fact, more automakers continue to improve the assembly line with flexible tooling, virtual engineering and robotics in order to keep up with the demands of the twenty-first century with ambitions of making Henry Ford’s one hundred year old technology better. Above all, making the automobile less expensive was an achievement in the engineer world, and as Henry Ford said, “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress’ working together is success” (“Henry”

“Making it in America”, by Adam Davidson, illustrates how technology and machinery are interchanging humans in the workforce. Machines are taking over factories and leaving more employees out of work. Davidson also points out that the wage-gap is considerably increasing between un-educated and educated laborers. Corporations and companies all over the world, including the Americans, Europeans, and Chinese, are purchasing machines over hiring workers to save money.

In this article, Jim Tankersley interviews Larry Summers, a Democratic economist and former Treasury Secretary, about the implications that technological advances, such as the use of robots in factories, have on income inequality and on middle-class jobs and wages. Because these new machines and robots can do the same work of low-skilled workers for lower costs, there has been a vast decrease in the amounts of jobs available for the middle-class. While some believe that the solution to this would be to obtain more education and learn skills that cannot be replaced by machines, Summers believes that this will not solve the problem because the income inequality caused by technology is due to the increase of wealth distribution to the top one

Many current politicians such as President Trump have stated that they are going to revive the middle class by bringing jobs back into our economy that have been shipped off overseas. However, the problem with jobs has not been from shipping them overseas. Paul Wiseman, writer for The Associated Press, shows proof of this by stating, “A study at Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research last year found that trade accounted for just 13 percent of America’s lost factory jobs. The vast majority of the lost jobs — 88 percent — were taken by robots and other homegrown factors that reduce factories’ need for human labor” (“Automation” 21). Many companies such as Amazon are prime examples of the automation of factory jobs. Amazon has many factory jobs that require long and hard work in some questionable working conditions. The New York Times reports, “that white-collar workers at Amazon are also subjected to a grueling culture consisting of 24-hour mandated performance, ritual abuse by bosses, and the annual arbitrary culling of employees, referred to as ‘purposeful Darwinism’ in company dialect” (qtd. in Means 21). Amazon did fix the worker problem; but, not by changing job conditions or managers. Instead, they fire the workers and simply replace them with Kiva robots that would do the job complaint free (Means 21).

Our issue can best be described by a story. The rivals in the tale were two titans in the world of automobile manufacturing who took a tour of a newly built and highly-automated factory. The forceful executive, Henry Ford II, and the leader of the automobile workers union, Walter Reuther, both saw many examples of advanced machinery operating at the plant. The words they exchanged brilliantly encapsulated the paradox of automation (Quote Investigator). “Walter, how are you going to get those robots to pay your union dues?”( Henry Ford II). This was followed by “Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?”(Walter Reuther). This is the exact issue we are dealing with today.

Robot work machines, according to RobotWorx, “Robots can run 24/7, and can perform 2-3 shifts in the time it would have taken a human to complete one. This saves labor costs while increasing productivity, boosting the company’s sales.” This also saves costs of companies who use these factories as these new robots can work in unseated factories, waterless factories, dark factories, and pretty much any other conditions that would not be suitable for humans to work in. The amount of money that these companies are saving in energy bills, water bills, and salaries of workers is astounding and the sole reason why almost every company will soon have a form of robotic manufacturing in the factories. Around the globe the average cost to employ a factory worker ranges from two dollars an hour to forty-seven dollars an hour and standard workplace robots cost around 250,000 dollars with the average cost of 10,000 dollars a year for maintenance of the robots, and on that scale it is proven that employing employees to work the assembly lines is a lot more expensive than using robots to work the assembly line instead. Companies would not have to give the robots vacation time, like human employees demand all the time. The robots would not require healthcare too, as companies are forced to supply healthcare to all their employees also. Managers wouldn 't be forced to

While that dystopian future may seem rather extreme, a more modest proposal would follow that robots may not be eating babies, but they uncertainly threaten the value of our time within a workplace. Machines, to many companies, are a

The advancement of automation has affected our everyday lives since the industrial revolution. Over the years we saw a drastic increase in unemployment due to the fact that machines and robots can now do the job more efficiently. Today we have adopted the idea of automation that we sometimes are unaware of the subtlety. We only become aware of the change when old technology advances or when there is a system malfunction while using the product. This monopoly is spreading through the workforce like a virus. Many people have lost jobs or have been forced to take up extra class courses due to automation. Challenges also arise as the older people get the harder it becomes to understand how to operate these new

In a recent study(pdf), economists Daren Acemoglu of MIT and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University try to quantify how worried we should be about robots. They examine the impact of industrial automation on the US labor market from 1990 to 2007. They conclude that each additional robot reduced employment in a given commuting area by 3-6 workers, and lowered overall wages by 0.25-0.5%. (Kopf)

Over time our lives seem to have become more and more integrated with our technology. Some may say that this is a very bad thing because this change may result in the loss of jobs for millions of people. Jobs such as, cashiers, bankers, legal assistants, and maybe even taxi drivers. The future may appear bleak at first, but the truth of the matter is that robots taking over our simple and automatable jobs just mean that our jobs can evolve with the technology. A very similar thing happened during the industrial revolution when technologies were developed that massively increased the efficiency and yield of farming. This in turn led to a vast increase of food in the country which led to a lesser need for everyone to be a farmer. With a massive amount of food, former farm workers, and advanced technology, a business of mass production and manufacturing began. The loss of jobs due to technology led to a