Financial Times (July 23)
“Computer algorithms encoded with human values will increasingly determine the jobs we land, the romantic matches we make, the bank loans we receive and the people we kill, intentionally with military drones or accidentally with self-driving cars.” The way those human values are embedded “will be one of the most important forces shaping our century. Yet no one has agreed what those values should be” and the “debate now risks becoming entangled in geo-technological rivalry between the US and China.”
Tags: Algorithms, China, Computer, Debate, Drones, Encoded, Geo-technological rivalry, Human values, Jobs, Loans, Self-driving cars, U.S.
New York Times (April 13)
“Brexit is not doable because it makes no sense, whatever the prime minister’s scattershot efforts or offers to resign. You can hoodwink people—but not if you give them three years to reflect on how they were hoodwinked before doing the deed the hoodwinking was about. The British cannot actually go through with something that will lower their incomes, make them poorer, lose them jobs, drain investment, expose their market to trade deals over which they would have no say, and—just an afterthought—lead to the breakup of Britain.”
Tags: Brexit, Hoodwink, Incomes, Investment, Jobs, Market, PM, Scattershot, Trade deals
The Economist (February 16)
“Ageing and robots are more closely related than you might think. Young countries with many children have few robots. Ageing nations have lots.” South Korea, Singapore, Germany and Japan top the list, but there needs to be a shift in focus. “An ageing world needs more resourceful robots” that can help care for seniors “rather than take people’s jobs.”
Businessweek (January 4)
“Just 19 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds had jobs in 2018, compared with almost half in 1968.” Shifts like this are “particularly troublesome for restaurants that have depended on young workers since the days of soda jerks and carhops.” Coupled with a tight employment market and increasing wages, restaurants will be “scrambling for cheap labor in 2019.”
Tags: Cheap labor, Employment, Jobs, Restaurants, Troublesome, Wages, Young workers
CNN (July 2)
“Every US-made car is an import,” which means US automakers could get stung bad by tariffs. According to a measure used by regulators, “the two most ‘American’ cars are both Hondas—the Odyssey minivan and Ridgeline pickup,” each of which boast about 75% of components made in the US or Canada. “The Honda Civic, Acura MDX, Acura TLX and the Mercedes C-class source 70% from the United States and Canada. The highest-ranked car made by a Detroit automaker is the Chevrolet Corvette, which placed seventh” at about 65%. GM has already warned that “tariffs could force the company to cut jobs at US plants due to an expected drop in sales associated with higher prices.”
Financial Times (April 11)
“For decades, Japan has struggled to remove barriers to the growth of technology start-ups,” but risk aversion and social pressure caused job seekers to focus on established companies. “That may be changing” as economic stagnation “threatens lifetime employment at big companies. More young people are joining start-ups or even going freelance to enjoy flexibility in their working life. Part-time or contract workers now account for about 40 per cent of Japan’s workforce.”
Tags: Barriers, Contract, Established, Freelance, Japan, Jobs, Lifetime employment, Part-time, Risk, Start-ups, Technology, Workforce
New York Times (March 15)
“There’s no way to bring back all those steel plants and steel jobs, even if we stopped all imports. Partly that’s because a modern economy doesn’t use that much steel, partly because we can produce steel using many fewer workers, partly because old-fashioned open-hearth plants have been replaced by mini-mills that use scrap metal and aren’t in the same places. So this is all a fantasy.”
Tags: Economy, Imports, Jobs, Mini-mills, Plants, Scrap metal, Steel
Newsweek (March 12)
By playing “his America First card,” President Trump thinks he’s getting ahead, particularly in the Rust Belt. He believes adopting tariffs will help fulfill “his promise to America’s industrial heartland to bring back jobs in its traditional industries. The problem is that those in the industrial heartland don’t seem to think it’s the right thing to do.” In fact, many “who work in manufacturing, remain convinced that tariffs will increase costs and lead to job losses. Far from saving the industrial sector, they say, Trump is showing economic illiteracy that will only add to the cost of significant consumer goods.”
Tags: America first, Consumer goods, Costs, Economic illiteracy, Heartland, Jobs, Manufacturing, Rust Belt, Tariffs, Trump
Newsweek (February 16)
“We’re on the cusp of a fourth industrial revolution. First came the steam trains, followed by electricity and after that, information technology—each transforming our working practices and automating jobs previously performed by humans. These days of course, it is robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning driving the change.” Not only are these being employed to complete routine tasks, “but they are increasingly capable of accomplishing tasks requiring cognitive abilities.”
Tags: AI, Cognitive abilities, Electricity, Industrial Revolution, IT, Jobs, Machine learning, Robotics, Steam trains
New York Times (May 7)
Six months on, both Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton are still waging last year’s campaign, undermining their promises to help America heal. This is particularly offensive — and more than a little pathetic — coming from Mr. Trump, who after all has a nation to run.” Yet, he still has “no concrete accomplishments to boast about, and nothing meaningful to offer the working people to whom he promised jobs and a revived industrial America.”
Tags: Accomplishments, Campaign, Clinton, Jobs, Meaningful, Offensive, Pathetic, Promises, Trump
