The advancement of technology affect the role of labor in the market

For ages, the advancement of technologies have been known for changing lives for goods and services and making work process challenging for us, but there are some conservative thinkers who think for a long while that advancement of technology is causing unemployment by changing that process of the workplace, some people think that with technological development the labor market has been decreasing drastically and replacing with automated machines.

There is no doubt that advancement of technology has increased the productivity like when we observe in a factory or any of the workplace, we find a number of machinery the run automatically without any human support that works very efficiently and more quickly. But our concern is to determine that either the role of labor has increased or decrease, if it has increased then in which manner or similarly if decrease then in which criteria. One aspect is that the current technological advancement undoubtedly has led to a higher relative demand for skilled workers and another aspect is that it has simultaneously lower relative demand for workers that performing their routine works or activities. We often hear that the use of computers in the workplace has been the central force driving changes in the wages of skilled workers and promote them to the wages of unskilled workers.

There is another aspect related to the role of labor that seems to be negative that robots or automatic numerical controlled machines displace current workers from their occupations and the other is that the price-productivity effect; as increasing the number of robots decreases the cost of production that attract the firms or factory’s owners, and on the same line and this encourages in expanding the number of industry and ultimately the demand of labor will be increased, now our point is that whose perception is more accurate or valuable.

We cannot disregard this view that artificial intelligence is producing robots or some other automated machinery that can completely take over humans and in this scenario, it is definitely a matter of our concern that what will be the impact of technology In the workplace and how it will become the causes of unemployment. Now the world has been going towards more advancements and even the factory owners are expecting very much from their workers and they immediately eliminate them from their company when they do any mistakes so in that scenario they totally rely on machines or heavy robots to reduce the chance of error. Now it is important to know that, Can we predict that the role of labor would be vanished out in future and automated machines would displace them? or can it really helpful for skilled workers or enhance the jobs in the market? Because there are some positive impacts of technology on unemployment, it would create new jobs for skilled workers that can empower themselves according to the complex world. Secondly, technology makes work processes computerized which can decrease risk and errors while improving performance, thirdly it would increase the demand for skilled workers of higher wages that have boosting high-paying jobs in the market.

“The robots are coming”. “No jobs are safe”. “The way we work is coming to an end” (S, Brown and PJ, Loprest, Sep 2018)

Automation corresponds to the product development and new technology gives that enables capital to be substituted for the labor in a range of tasks, as automation changes the task of the content of production adversely for the labor due to displacement effect; because capital takes over tasks that previously performed by labor.

The Pew Research Center presents a comprehensive balance stance, analyzing both the benefits and detriments of technological unemployment ( Smith 2014). Out of which some of the benefits are that technological advances have always been a net creator jobs in situation of high-magnitude change. Moreover even if jobs are displaced in the short-run, this job loss could be seen in the context of longer time of economic cycles that leads to increase the growth. Humans are good at confessing to new challenges including the invention of new and modern work to adapt to changing the economic circumstances. The main argument is that technology is continuing to deliver on its promise to free humans from drudgery, and now it totally up to us how efficiently we organize society around this fact. Apart from that, technological unemployment is already starting to generate the social good of defining “work” in a more positive way; as productive human effort rather than sustenance labor.

However there are some of the potential costs of technological unemployment that results from its disproportionate impact on society.one of the important example is the bifurcation of the labor force; as highly skilled workers in certain industries are better poised in leading success, on the other hand other are being displaced into lower-paying services market jobs specially industrial jobs or into a state of permanent unemployment. Another perception is that blue-collar employment is being impacted more than white-collar employment and women more than men (Brinded 2016).

The main question is that whether the technological unemployment is also a modern issue or not? Are the structural changes to the economy, or is today’s technical unemployment part of persistent effect in the long run? An important research points to be evidence of jobless growth by indicating that unemployment with increases in automation is increased by more than 5.7% between May 2007 and October 2009 (Brynjolfsson 2012).

Another study indicates that about 44% of companies that have cut their employees since 2008 did so by replacing their function with automated machines (McKinsey 2011). These examples highlight that technological unemployment could be one explanation for the recent jobless growth, this could happen because capital, in the form of technology, is being effectively substituted for the labor. The fact that the nature of technological unemployment is changing could also affect the velocity and reach of the substitution of technology for labor. Automation is however no longer being confined to daily activities, since machine learning algorithms, cloud-based huge data and predictive analytics are quickly enabling new forms of technology applications. Like Self-driving vehicles are one of the example that express how technology is assuming more complicated task. The current situation of technological unemployment can bitterly be understood by considering some important analogous economic examples like outsourcing, where over the last several decades a huge number of jobs have shifted to other countries with more efficient profiles. There were no doubt fear of job loss, but the aggregate economy overall eventually adjusted to the situation due to many valuable reasons.

Overall, this kind of rational technological unemployment growth could be long-term trends that demand structural economic change. Irrespective of measurability challenges, they should be addressed and discussed, particularly through macroeconomic policies.

Firstly, After reviewing a comprehensive literature, reports, or many policies regarding to required study, we built a questionnaire and wrote those questions that still demanded proper answers, Secondly, To analyze the impact accurately, we have adopted quantitative methodology, and our main instrument is questionnaire because we wanted to analyze their impact statistically, As on the account of COVID-19 and lockdown situation, we decided to collect it through social media platform, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and through email as well. Further data was collected mostly to employed, unemployed workers, and entrepreneurs. Moreover we collected responses from 106 particular respondents who are most relevant to our field of area.

We used purposive sampling, because of many reasons firstly to avoid the non-serious attitudes of respondents, secondly it’s not a very time consuming as we collected data during the short period of Jan 20 to Jan 25.Thirdly, it’s not a very cost-effective sampling. We collected data mostly from Faslabad, Lahore, Raiwind, because there are many industries in these cities, and these industries comprises a lot of labors so, we could easily collect their best responses. Before distributing the questionnaire, we decided to approve it from trust worthy researcher to check how the questions are effective or correlated with each other. Then after taking responses, we analyzed their perceptions through SPSS software and by using different tests to check how valid or reliable these are.

About 50% people responded that they have not sufficient skills that, in turn causes to leave their jobs. And about 44% people said that their enterprises do not pay them a handsome salary, 70% people are divided in both that either advancement of technology increase or decrease the role of labor, as in previous researchers we have analyzed that people are confused that which factor is most leading and which one is lagging. About 70% people said that there are negative consequences on the quality of services due to changed worked rules it means that they have some difficulties while using technology, Moreover as technology demand proper skills and it’s surprised to us that half of the people responded us that the skills they have acquired do not match in the current job market. It is quite important to discuss that why half of the people do not have sufficient skills?

Further mostly people prefer automated machines on labor work because it is quite easy or productive, and for this about 90% respondents responded us that their management completely focusing on the hiring new highly skilled workers. And about half of the people do not feel comfortable to the modern task. As the data was very disperse mostly people have not sufficient skills and their company completely relay on hiring skilled workers and those who are already hired they feel uncomfortable with technology, these all statistics merged on a single point that owners for their interest demand more productive work and for this they relay technology and that quite confusing for already employed workers and now the scenario is simply that the future is only for skilled workers and unskilled workers gradually pushing backward.

Apart from that it is important to mention that about 65%of the respondents responded us that unemployment rate is increasing day by day, and majority of them agreed that rapid automation are causing unemployment, further about 73% people agreed that the scope of labor has been decreasing day by day due to automated controlled machines and only 15% are neutral.

As our community has different views, those who are skilled and feel comfortable while using technology they are completely satisfied with this modern breakthrough, and those who are unskilled they feel uncomfortable with technology and mostly are those who are senior workers whose age above31 or those who are currently unemployed due to insufficient skills, but still majority of the respondents agree that the scope of labor has been increasing day by day, that is quite important response for the discussions, the policy makers now think about them that how should we cope all these hurdles, because on the one side rapid productivity is important for our economy and on the other side the issue of unemployment is also very important issue.