IS AUTOMATION EATING UP JOBS OR CREATING MORE JOBS

The objective of this post is to discuss both sides of the coin on the basis of facts and not emotions or sentiments that are particular to any sect.rnThese three integral parts of modern human lives have completely revolutionized the human civilization. Take anything and you shall see that somehow it is related to automation, computer and software. In fact, automation is the child of the marriage between hardware and software. Therefore, we shall focus only on automation to take into account the combined effect of the other two. On one hand, automation has empowered human beings to do more meaningful and human-like jobs. Automation has helped us to focus on those qualities that has made us humans – the most unique and intelligent animal to have ever walked on this planet. Not only that, automation has taken the responsibility of performing monotonous, tiresome and high precision jobs in a flawless and efficient manner. This has relieved us from doing boring things and we can now indulge in creative pursuits – something which only human beings can do. For example, automation has empowered us to complete the manufacturing and assembly of a car in a few hours, as per the exact technical specification. Assembling units run on a 24x7 basis with tremendous precision, so that human beings can perhaps write a poem or work on an unsolved mathematics problem.rnHowever, had the world being a Utopian place where everything is fair and ideal, then automation would have been undoubtedly the greatest boon for mankind. Sadly, it is not so and will never be so in the days to come. Human beings, for their very existence, needs some form of currency that can standardize the mode of exchange. People needs all kind of things, some of them being necessities and some others are luxury. But then again, the classification of the necessities and the luxury items are extremely subjective. rnHistorically, the wealth or currency has not been distributed equally among all. Now, currency being the very basic of modern life, those who have more currency or wealth at their disposal leads better lives and can cope up with changes in a much more effective manner than those who doesn’t have it. The point is that automation has been brought due to industrialization, and industries are driven mostly by the capitalists. Now, there is nothing wrong with capitalism, except the fact that when a capitalist decides to automate his marketing campaigns and brings in software to improve efficiency and increase profit margin, those people who were fully dependent on their salaries and have known sales as the only profession throughout their lives start starving all of a sudden. rnAfter all, we cannot expect a man at his mid-forties to invest substantially on upgrading his employability and skills, when he has at least three mouths to feed. Take for example, telemarketing professionals and professional answering specialists ate up the jobs of thousands of people who were engaged in vis-à-vis sales. rnCheap telephone calls kicked them out of their jobs, because their employer had no way out but to adopt modern technology to stay in business. The scenario is changing again, as the telemarketers are losing their jobs to digital marketing specialists. Employers and employees are merely puppet in the hands of technology driven automation, although we must remember that when one door closes, another one opens up!