Tag: Employment

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Report dials down the risk to jobs from automation

Fulfillment center
An automated guided vehicle trundles packages inside an Amazon fulfillment center in Dupont, Wash. Automation is expected to affect a wide range of occupations. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)

A working paper written for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that about 14 percent of the jobs in 32 OECD countries, including the U.S., are at high risk of being automated.

That raw figure may not sound as dire as some of the previous numbers cited for the effect of automation and artificial intelligence on employment, and that’s what’s been grabbing the headlines over the past couple of days. But a close reading of the report, published last month, shouldn’t lead anyone to brush off the issue — as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin did last year.

The authors of the study, Ljubica Nedelkoska and Glenda Quintini, say the level of automation risk varies widely from country to country. Slovakia comes in on the high side (33 percent), while the projected risk is only 6 percent in Norway.

The high-risk percentage for the U.S. is 10 percent, which is significantly lower than the 47 percent that was cited in a provocative 2013 study by Oxford researchers. But even 10 percent translates to about 15 million U.S. jobs.

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Tech experts get real about automation and jobs

Automation panel
Artefact Group CEO Rob Girling moderates a panel on the social effects of automation. The panelists include Google Research’s Dan Liebling, Uber’s Caleb Weaver, Microsoft Research’s Ece Kamar, Microsoft veteran Cesar Keller and Avanade’s Aaron Reich. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

It’s a thrilling time for technology, with innovations in artificial intelligence and robotics propelling society ever faster forward. But is it too fast?

That’s a question that came up more than once on March 21 during a panel discussion on automation’s impacts on society and work, presented at Seattle University by the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Northwest.

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How machine learning will affect future jobs

Dermatoscope
A dermatologist uses a dermatoscope, a type of handheld microscope, to look at skin. Computer scientists at Stanford have created an artificially intelligent diagnosis algorithm for skin cancer that matched the performance of board-certified dermatologists. (Stanford Photo / Matt Young)

Computer scientists have created artificial-intelligence algorithms that are at least as good as trained humans at recognizing the signs of skin cancer or malaria, but does that mean your future physician will be a bot?

Two experts on AI explain in the journal Science why the rapid rise of machine learning could be good for well-paid professionals like dermatologists and epidemiologists, no big deal for workers on the low end of the wage spectrum, but big trouble for employees in the middle.

That’s because those middle-spectrum jobs are particularly vulnerable to the machine-learning treatment, MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Carnegie Mellon University’s Tom Mitchell say.

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Report: Automation could displace 375M workers

Boeing worker and robot
A worker keeps watch on a riveting robot inside the mid-body fuselage of a 777 jet. (Boeing Photo)

The latest robot report has bad news for laborers and office support staff, good news for techies and healthcare workers. India looks bright, while Japan could face the toughest stretch.

Those are just some of the takeaways from McKinsey Global Institute’s data-packed analysis of the effects of automation on employment between now and 2030. The bottom line? Hundreds of millions of workers around the world will be displaced due to the revolutions in robotics and artificial intelligence.

“Displaced” is the key term: Many of those workers will adjust to the new conditions. But it won’t be pretty, McKinsey’s analysts say. As many as 375 million workers, including 38.6 million Americans, may have to switch occupations or learn new skills to hold down a job in 2030.

“Our key finding is that while there may be enough work to maintain full employment to 2030 under most scenarios, the transitions will be very challenging — matching or even exceeding the scale of shifts out of agriculture and manufacturing we have seen in the past,” the analysts write.

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Aerospace jobs linked to education boost

Students working on aerospace project
Aaron Quach and Jonathan Thiem, students at Mountlake Terrace High School, work on a Boeing-backed class project that involves designing an efficient airplane wing. (Boeing Photo / Katie Lomax)

The state of the aerospace industry in Washington state is still great, but industry leaders say the educational system will have to be beefed up if it’s going to stay that way for the next generation.

That cautionary message emerged from today’s installment of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Congress’ Executive Speaker Series, focusing on the aerospace industry.

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Boeing sends layoff notices to hundreds more

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Boeing says involuntary layoffs will affect hundreds of workers in engineering. (GeekWire Photo)

The Boeing Co. signaled that hundreds of employees involved in aerospace engineering in Washington state and other locations will be laid off starting in June.

The job cuts, reportedly due to begin on June 23, come on top of earlier rounds of voluntary and involuntary layoffs that have unfolded over the past year. Boeing Commercial Airplane’s employment figures have fallen by just over 10 percent since the start of 2017. Last month, Boeing approved voluntary buyouts for 1,500 machinists and 305 engineers, and also issued 245 involuntary layoff notices to take effect in May.

The newly announced layoffs should start taking effect on June 23, according to a widely cited memo from John Hamilton, vice president of engineering at Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

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Robot study brings more bad news about jobs

Image: Pushing a robot
A researcher gives the next-generation Atlas robot a good, hard push. (Credit: Boston Dynamics)

Newly published research runs counter to the hope that the rise of automation should create as many jobs for human workers as it destroys. Computer modeling suggests a downward trend, and real-world statistics from the 1990-2007 time period confirm the effect, MIT’s Daron Acemoglu and Boston University’s Pascual Restrepo say. A report on the research in The New York Times says blue-collar men without college degrees are hit especially hard, which helps explain the angst behind last November’s Rust Belt support for Donald Trump’s presidential run.

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Treasury chief downplays AI impact on jobs

Donald Trump and Steven Mnuchin
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during his White House swearing-in ceremony in February. (White House via YouTube)

Experts say the potential impact of automation and artificial intelligence could be one of the biggest economic issues of the 21st century, but Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says it’s not on his radar screen.

Mnuchin made his comments during a “News Shapers” sitdown with Axios’ Mike Allen. His observations are pointed enough, and brief enough, that they’re worth an extended quote:

Mnuchin: “In terms of artificial intelligence taking over American jobs, I think we’re like so far away from that, not even on my radar screen.”

Allen: “How far away?”

Mnuchin: “Far enough that it’s …”

Allen: “Seven more years?”

Mnuchin: “Seven more years? I think it’s 50 or 100 more years.”

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Boeing OKs buyouts for 1,800 union workers

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Boeing has approved the first wave of voluntary layoffs for union workers. (GeekWire Photo)

Boeing has approved buyouts for more than 1,800 union workers, marking the start of a new round of job reductions that’s expected to continue through the year.

The voluntary layoffs include 1,500 machinists and 305 engineers, representatives of the workers’ unions told GeekWire today. Boeing Commercial Airplanes is reducing non-union positions as well, but the company isn’t providing numbers for those classifications.

The company said in December that it would have to continue last year’s downward trend in employment to stay competitive with Airbus, its European aerospace rival.

Last year’s job reductions amounted to about 8 percent of the workforce in Boeing’s commercial airplane division, going from roughly 82,500 to a little more than 76,000 employees by the end of 2016. The reductions were achieved through voluntary and involuntary layoffs as well as attrition.

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Trump’s victory highlights automation vs. jobs

Ford auto factory
Robots work on Ford trucks at a factory in Norfolk, Va. The plant was closed in 2007. (Ford Photo)

Six months ago, computer scientist Moshe Vardi felt as if he was a voice crying in the wilderness when it came to automation’s anticipated effect on the job market. No political candidate, it seemed, was talking about the potential impact of autonomous cars and automated manufacturing on future employment.

Today, the topic still isn’t quite on President-elect Donald Trump’s radar screen. But his election has gotten a lot more experts talking about the issue.

“It went from being somewhat esoteric to being practically mainstream,” Rice University’s Vardi told GeekWire.

Since the election, Trump has put jobs front and center on his agenda.

“Whether it’s producing steel, building cars or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here, in our great homeland, America, creating wealth and jobs for American workers,” he said this week in a YouTube video.

But Trump’s prescription focuses on renegotiating (or withdrawing from) trade deals, doubling down on fossil-fuel sources, cutting back on regulations and cracking down on work visas.

Even if Trump and congressional leaders follow through on those initiatives, they won’t address what Vardi and other analysts say is a fundamental shift that will transform the very nature of work in the decades to come: the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence.

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