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July 15, 2019

How technology is impacting basic jobs



It is commonly joked that soon the robots will be running everything in our world. While this started out as a joke, it is actually pretty close to the world that we live in today.

Everything from online shopping, self-checkouts, and even drones that deliver packages right to people’s doorsteps has made an impact on the job market.

But how is technology really impacting people’s jobs?

It Allows for Productivity Optimization

One very important thing to remember about expanding technology in the occupational sector is that it allows for a more efficient and effective outcome.

Factories have utilized advancements in technology to produce goods at a fraction of the cost. This has been going on since the Industrial Revolution (News - Alert), but nowadays, the technology is even more efficient and doesn’t even require human attendants to manage the machines.



Factory work is not all that has benefitted from improving technology. Truck drivers have also been helped by technologies that make their jobs easier and safer. With new cameras, collision avoidance technology, and routing guidance, their jobs of transporting essential goods across country is now easier than ever. Not to mention, there are now fewer traffic accidents caused by truck drivers.

Too Much Optimization Could Lead to Layoffs

One of the concerns with technology taking over the workplace is that human workers will lose their jobs. For truck drivers, for example, there could come a day when there will no longer be a need for a person to fill the seat of a transport truck. With cars that can already drive themselves, this future is closer than we think.

This, of course, would likely mean that those who were employed to drive the trucks will have to either look elsewhere for work or adapt to the changing technology and learn to be the ones who work on this technology.

In a lot of cases, the jobs that machines are starting to take over are the ones that are the easiest to do. This means that a lot of the basic trade workers will be forced to find other work.

This means that when this change comes and “robots take over the world”, it will first be those service workers who serve food, drive trucks or other modes of transportation, and deliver our packages who are impacted by it.

It Forces Us to Adapt

Whether or not we like it, the way that technology is impacting the work force is inevitable. And that simply means that workers have to adapt.

It is important that they are willing to learn how to have a place in the new work-field. They must also admit that there is a need to adapt in the first place.

Many people think that there will always be a job for an able-bodied human, willing to do what other humans will not. However, when it comes to janitors, garbagemen, and other less-desirable occupations around, it is only a matter of time until the machines achieve the capabilities to do all of these things. There are already automated vacuums, and garbage trucks that have arms to pull the trash into the back. Change is coming, and it’s happening already.

The Takeaway

We are not far from the machine-filled life that we see in movies set in the ‘future’.

This is an important realization for those who are in job positions that are soon to be taken over by these machines. Basic jobs are generally more cost-effective for companies to allocate to machines than to human employees. Therefore, human workers will need to take their opportunity to learn how to take care of and operate these machines. Otherwise, they will be forced to look elsewhere until there is no elsewhere.



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