Does automation lead to unemployment? 

As we witness these advancements in technology, we have a growing a fear at the back of our mind. We as a society have always had a very cautious look on robots especially with various books and series amplifying the agenda that one day robots will soon take over all our jobs. We can see this in major article piece form various publications all the around now the concern is very valid, but does it have any truth to it?

This isn’t a new question that technology during the recent decade have been brought up. This is question dates back more then half a century ago. During WW2 we saw some industrial feats that were thought to impossible by the power of survival. Major participants of WW2 were losing workforce day by day, so they had to use a more reliable way of mass-producing products. The answer came right at us, and we started off as fast we could manage. After WW2 that is when it really started to be felt by the public since most of the job’s machines were taking up were for the military but after WW2 the priority had been changed a now, they were mas producing commercial goods.  Now you may be asking did the automation affect the unemployment of the world and the answer to that would be it certainly did. However, it may not be in the way you think as the start there were massive layoffs but as the quality of humanity goes, we manage to adapt to everything, and the employment level was back under control. 

Now that we have talked about the past, what about the future? Many scientists and researchers and adamant in the belief that even though automation will cause mass unemployment at the start, chances are enough jobs fill be filled by new job openings due to the burst of automation. Take for example in the 1980’s where there was mass hysteria due to computers taking over our job but loo how that turned. If you ask anyone, they will say computation is one of the fields with the most jobs due to its diverse possibilities. To be fair jobs with no special expertise required such as being a cashier will most definitely be wiped out as they require no human creativity but when you take jobs such as being a lawyer the debate switches to human’s favor as being a lawyer requires tremendous creativity as well as human knowledge. 

Throughout history we have seen countless examples of events that have revolutionized the workforce forever and surprisingly for the better. Nowadays we have such a diverse selection of jobs we find it hard to believe this all can be replaced by a robot or on the other hand we find it inevitable that the job market will be taken over by robots soon. Whatever our opinions may be, it cannot be denied that so far automation has just increased our workforce instead of mitigating which is feat to be reckoned with the question must we ask ourselves is that will we let of our dreams for the fear of a robot taking over it or will we chase our dream and meet the future with wide open arms. 

Guest article written by: Hi, I am Ronit Batra the author of this article, if you have any comments or inquiries let me know on the Gmail of [email protected]. If you are interested in the content I put out here is the blog I have: ThinkWriteRise.com

Leave a Comment