The February 2, 2013 issue of the New York Times carried an article “Raging (Again) Against the Robots”. This article again highlights some of the issues that were raised in my last few blogs; (re)Training the workforce and jobs. The article highlighted several points from the book “Race against the Machine” (another of my recommended reads – the Amazon Kindle version is very economical).
There are several great points made in the NYT article and the textbook. One in particular was “If a job can be reduced to an algorithm, it will be”. Both the article and the book point out the numerous changes in the job market – particularly the number of jobs that have been eliminated by computer technology. Yet while we can complain that technology has eliminated jobs, there are many new jobs that are being created. After all, technology doesn’t create itself. The problem is, companies cannot find the “skills” match necessary to place employees in the new positions that are being created.
Consider for example, the new technologies that have been introduced in the last decade: I-Devices, smart phones, DVD’s (OK, they were developed in 1995), Blu-Ray (2006), etc. Yet how many new educational courses have been developed that are teaching individuals how to use these technologies so they can be increasingly proficient on their jobs? Yes, we may use them in a classroom, but do the same skills I use to text my friends to meet for a basketball game after school, translate to increased awareness and productivity at a company? In reality, most people learn to use the technology on their own – few are taught in any structured format. I can’t remember the last time I saw an academic credential for iPad-ology.
Let’s take this a step further – How many technological advances have you seen in the assets your company has purchased in the last decade? Are your employees fully embracing and utilizing the technologies to increase your company’s profits? Or are you finding that the real challenge is finding (or retraining existing) employees that can fully utilize the technologies to increase your company’s profitability? In fact, some companies have invested heavily in new technology, only to find that they can’t keep it on-line due to operational and maintenance problems.
In the book, “Race Against the Machine”, the authors contend that there are jobs available, but there are no employees to properly fill them. They also point out that the gap is widening between low paid, low skilled jobs and high paid, high skilled jobs. The middle is disappearing. Can we continue to ignore the lack of skilled trades apprenticeships, which steer individuals to highly paid, highly skilled jobs? The answer is, of course, NO. After all, the technology will never maintain itself. You never saw a single robot on Star Trek fix anything that was broken. Scotty had a job for life. Let’s stop fantasizing that robots will someday do it all and fix our educational systems before it is too late.
Whoo, ok maintenance is safe from being replaced by robots Terry, whats the next scare.. nanobots? :)
Posted by: Don Fitchett | 04/01/2013 at 07:14 PM
It is completely true robots can't be replaced over technicians. Because the job of technician is so difficult and they has to identify the mistakes so minutely that robots can't do that.
Posted by: Nicky | 06/12/2013 at 08:51 AM