Some 40% of all jobs are predicted to disappear with automation in Australia. The jobs most likely to go first will be those that can be easily codified, those that are repetitive, simple, structured or routine: think of jobs in manufacturing or those that involve form processing or driving a vehicle. [...]
Now we are starting to see the effect of automation everywhere and especially in productivity and economic growth statistics. It’s expected that automation will make a A$2.2 trillion boost to productivity in Australia between 2015 and 2030. But whether productivity gains will be redistributed equally, remains highly questionable.
There is a general economic argument that workers’ wages should grow in line with productivity growth and in doing so improve everyone’s living standards. Although there is overwhelming data about rising economic surpluses from automation, recent evidence indicates that the growth of productivity and the growth of workers’ wages are not actually linked. [...]
Businesses also don’t have an incentive to distribute a share of the gains back to the workers. We can see this for example in pharmaceutical services, which are becoming increasingly automated, yet workers are faced with low starting salaries. In such a highly competitive industry, the businesses are instead incentivised to pass on the gains to customers in terms of lower prices of goods and services they offer, rather than wages.
No comments:
Post a Comment