Diego Rosario-Norberto

U of U writing
12/10/2014
Technology and Job Reduction
The world is growing in terms of its technology, but is that always a good thing? Are
these machines that are created by our own hands here to replace us? No I am not talking about
the machines like the movie Terminator portray, but I do speak about the tasks that machines are
programmed to do and how one day all of these manual routine jobs will be taken over. This
rapid increase in technology will soon take over jobs that str available to this day, leading the
future to a world of extreme competition over jobs. The times to analyze this growing occurrence
is now, and by doing so we can avoid a greater loss in the future.

There are two categories of jobs routine and nonroutine jobs. Routine Jobs such as
Construction,Mechanics,farming, and assembly lines, have already been going through some
changes with its workforce, slowly depleting its human workforce and replacing them with
more , slowly giving jobs to machines. On the other hand non-routine jobs such managers,
engineers, or any type of job that requires high amounts of creativity are being targeted by this
next gen workforce.As reference Stowe Boyd wrote an article about robots and technology
taking over most jobs says the following:

Rosario 2

March of 2013, four economics researchers from the New York Federal Reserve
published a report on job "polarization" -- the phenomenon of routine task work
disappearing and only the highest and lowest skilled work still available. The authors
stated: They based their analysis on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which
demonstrates that around 2005, the U.S. passed a threshold where more than 50 percent
of all occupations are non-routine. In fact, extrapolating from the relatively straight line
on the graph, at this point we should be over 60 percent nonroutine.

The graph shows that through the years non-routine jobs have been increasing as the routine
jobs have been failing to grow or stay stable with the amount of jobs exist. Making us as workers
try to go for non-routine jobs, jobs that require creativity, and with the growth of people and
machines the competition for these very scarce routine jobs and non-routine jobs are up for the
one who comes first and gets served first. As the article says most of the very high skilled and
most of the very low skilled routine jobs will not be taken as quickly as those mediocre routine

jobs, so either a different route can be taken to stop this decrease in routine jobs or we can just
give in and be part of a non-routine
workforce.Everything as it is might be a small issue right now but we should think about the
future while we still got time to work things out before they get to the point of no return. Also
like explained in his article that soon more and more autonomous machines will be created to
take over some jobs that might seem impossible now but in the very near future this new tech
might surprise us.

Now I wouldnt say that as of now machines arent replacing us all but the creation of
jobs has been slowing down more and more as the years go by meanwhile the economy seems to
be doing better, which shows to be an effect of technology on jobs. An article in MIT review
(http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/515926/how-technology-is-destroying-jobs/)
talks about how job creation has been slow in growth, using evidence such as the economic:
The pattern is clear: as businesses generated more value from their workers, the country as a
whole became richer, which fueled more economic activity and created even more jobs. Then, beginning
in 2000, the lines diverge; productivity continues to rise robustly, but employment suddenly wilts. By
2011, a significant gap appears between the two lines, showing economic growth with no parallel increase
in job creation.

Erik Brynjolfssons talks about the rise productivity and reduction in job creation and connects it to the
rise in technology that is slowly replacing more and more people in the job industry. And as the graph
shows

the gap in productivity and job creation. The article explains how soon
some jobs even in law medicine and of course most routine jobs will be
slowly being replaced by our high technology. Just like an article ERIC
(http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED246534) explains, technology is just slowly
lowering job creation over the years and if things keep going towards the
direction it has been going for the past few years the jobs we know know
will dissappear and the competition for all these available jobs will be
fought over.

Many might say that technology is still creating jobs, but is

it enough for our rising population to hold on to? The more sluggish job creation gets over the
years because of technology, the more poverty and conflict we will have and the graphs that
show decrease in routine jobs and job creation show considerable evidence that we must look at
and think about and search for a way where some of these routine jobs will be salvaged from our
growing technology. Will the non-routine jobs of the future be enough in quantity to sustain the
rising population of the unemployed? Only the future will tell if it will, but based on the path that
we are taking now one can only speculate that the increase in unemployment will increase.

RESOURCES

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stowe-

boyd/robots-jobs-purpose-humans_b_5689813.html
http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED246534
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/51

5926/how-technology-is-destroying-jobs/