Introduction
My first impression on "The End of Work" by Jeremy Rifkin was how technology influences the job markets. And then the subtitle "The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era" made me think that the book is about how technology is the cause of job lost in labor force. The reason I choice this book was because it relates to the group project "impact of technology" I was doing and also that the author Jeremy Rifkin is a famous economist. I hope by reading this book will inform me or give me a better understanding of job trends and how future job markets will be like. And with these knowledge, I hope it will give me the skills to help me to counsel the people who have lost their job because the new technologies.
Summary of the book's content
The book "The End of Work" by Jeremy Rifkin was published in 1995. Its main focus is on how automation affects jobs and employment. In the 1930's American's unemployment rate was at its highest level. According to Rifkin the average unemployment rate during the 1950's was 4.5%, in the 1960's unemployment rate was 4.8 % and in the 1970's it was 6.2%. Therefore with these figures it shows that machines were starting to take over human labor jobs and then unemployment rate increases. In the 1980's the unemployment rate increased again to 7.3%, Rifkin says that this is because of many human labor jobs is been replace by machinery for the mass production. In the 1980's corporations spent trillions of dollars on technology to improve their efficiency and this results large numbers of blue collar jobs disappears and robotics, telecommunications, technologies and computers will be the ones that is taking over.
Millions of people will be unemployed or underempl...
... middle of paper ...
...uld understand more about the future trend and where jobs will be coming up. Therefore with this information Career counsellor can be passed down it to its client so they can make a better decisions with their career choices.
Conclusion
In conclusion this is a very interesting book to read because what Rifkin has talked about in the book also happened later in America's economy. In 2008, America's impending economic collapse; thousands of manufacture jobs were lost, millions of service sector jobs are gone and trillions of dollar government bailouts, and many of these jobs will never return. Therefore I believe if you read the book with an open mind set, you will find this book may be the door to the future.
Works Cited
Rifkin, J. (1995). The end of work: THE DECLINE OF THE GLOBAL LABOR FORCE AND THE DAWN OF THE POST-MARKET ERA. U.S.A: Putnam Publishing Group.
In her introduction, Barbara Garson gives the reader an idea of her personal work experience as a clerk with automation. One can see that Garson is a strong critique of automation. In order to convey how automation is affecting our society the author begins by analyzing and studying various jobs from the bottom on up (i.e. starting with the most unskilled labor).
Miller, G. (2010, October 12). Twenty Something Finance . Retrieved April 12, 2011, from The U.S. is the Most Overworked Developed Nation in the World – When do we Draw the Line?: http://20somethingfinance.com/american-hours-worked-productivity-vacation/
The robots are taking over!!! This is the idea that Kevin Kelly stresses and elaborates on in his article “Better than Human:Why Robots Will-and must-Take Our Jobs”. The article focuses on automation in the workplace and how most of the jobs that are currently done by humans will be taken over by robots in the future. Kelly believes that this is inevitable and that it is a positive thing. While I believe that most of our jobs will be taken over in the future, I do not think that Kelly did a great job at trying to prove his point and his argument was mediocre.
Industrial capitalism transformed greatly in a century; however work continued to decline with the advancement of time. Therefore, work was better in 1750 then it was in 1850. " The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself" (134.).
In the essay “Work in an Industrial Society” by Erich Fromm, the author explains how work used to carry a profound satisfaction, however today workers only care about their payment for their labor. Fromm opens up with how craftsmanship was developed in the thirteenth and fourteenth century. It was not until the Middle ages, Renaissance and the eighteenth century, when craftsmanship was at its peak. According to C.W. Mills, workers were free to control his or her own working actions, learn from their work and develop their skills and capacities. Despite what Mills says, people today spend their best energy for seven to eight hours a day to produce “something”. Majority of the time, we do not see the final
In Douglas Rushkoff article, “Are Jobs Obsolete?”, he brings up some very interesting points. I believe his main claim is that Americans can survive if all of us do not have jobs. He states that jobs are slowly being replaced by machines or computers and how we do not need to make up other jobs, instead we should enjoy life while we have machines working for us.
As stated from the studies above, the rise of automation will also cause a rise and shift in the workforce. The shift will cause lower wage jobs to be replaced by efficient machines, while creating mid to high wage jobs for the rest of the workforce. This will in turn require a higher education for jobs and encourage the society to increase the education system quality. As society advances in the future, more jobs will be available despite current scares and anxieties over a job loss trend in the labor market. The agriculture and manufacturing industries will continue to decline in the future as computer software related jobs will continue to increase due to the improvements of technology in the workplace. Automation and machine learning will cause a growth in the labor market, profiting the economy and improving the
Robots are important to humans in the workforce, even though, it may not appear so. In Better than Humans: Why Robots Will- and Must- Take Our Jobs, Kelly initially unsettles the reader by noting that our, “job [will be] taken by machines”- if not already taken (Kelly 300). The reason why
This paper is briefing of book called “Race against the Machine” written by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. This paper focuses on the impact of technology on the current employment issues. Three explanations of current economic issues that is cyclical, stagnantion and “end of work” is provided (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011). Then the idea of excessive progress in technology making man jobless is presented and to support it various arguments are put forward. Secondly the idea of technology development causing division of labor into high skilled, low skilled, capital, labor, superstars and ordinary labors is presented and explained in detail. Finally remedies for solving these issues are presented and explained. Major takeaways of this paper are mismatch between the productivity and job creation, interlink between Technology improvement and division of labor and importance of education in building stable skilled labors and in the developing a stable society. (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011)
“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man” (Hubbard 151). Elbert Hubbard, an American writer and the founder of Roycroft Artisan community, predicted the future with his epigram. His maxim would resonate for years to come and would be seen in the future job markets. For thousands of years, technology has fundamentally changed the way we live and interact with our environment. It has brought us from the Stone Age to the Industrial Revolution. It has taken us from the creation of the computer to the landing on the moon. Not only has technology affected the old, but also it has affected the youth. For the old and aged, modern technological innovations have brought about longer lives through medicine and other health care. People today are able to live longer, live stronger, and live happier. As for the youth and growing generations, technology has also affected them in various ways. From entertainment to education, technology has designed a generation that could never have been before imagined. But technology has not stopped there; it also has affected their future. From what careers they will pursue to how much they will earn, technology will play a big role. With the rise of new machines and equipment, thousands of jobs will be created that will range from ones that involve handling the machinery to ones that cannot be done by machinery. However on the other hand, new technology also takes away thousands of other jobs from society. As businesses look for ways to maker bigger profits, they will start replacing workers with machinery that could do the job faster and better. While the amount of unemployed may increase due to the advancement of technology, there will also b...
Johnston , William B. and Packer, Arnold H., (1987). Workforce 2000: Work and Workers for the 21st Century.
A 2014 Oxford study found that the number of U.S. workers shifting into new industries has been strikingly small: In 2010, only 0.5 percent of the labor force was employed in industries that did not exist in 2000. The discussion about humans, machines and work tends to be a discussion about some undetermined point in the far future. But it is time to face reality. The future is now. (UPI Top
Seeking the services of a career counselor can provide many benefits. One can gain a deeper understanding of him/herself, gain information on education and careers, gain sills in decision-making, gain support in conducting a job search or applying to higher education, and gain support coping with career transitions (NCDA, “Why Seek Career Counseling, 2007). How a career counselor provides services depends on his or her theoretical approach to career counseling.
Nevertheless, many fears to technological advancement have been expressed similarly to that of their predecessors by the ‘Neo-Luddites’ of today (Stewart 1996, p.13). A prime advocate, author of The End of Work and US economist, Jeremy Rifkin asserts that technology is a ‘revolution’ which has taken over the world, posing a significant restructuring of the workforce and quality of life (Wyndham 1997, p.
This leads to the idea that automation has divided human workers and creates unemployment. David Ricardo was economic politist who fought against the problem of automation. Ricardo believed technology would change living standards and concluded that machines might one day make goods so cheaply that there would not be any competition between factories if they paid laborer a living income (Brown, 2012, p. 134). Employers believe this to be false saying there is little effect if any due to the cause of automation. With the rise of automation, it was in matter of time that the unemployment rate would increase. Even with the massive rise of automation, the United States and economy kept making jobs. Positions were gone, but new technologies created other jobs. Employers say are positioned in different title within the same company or in the same position at another company that has not automated (Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, 2017, p. 1). There is several reports and forums that say as time goes, more jobs will be lost and than more jobs will be created from automation. “The World Economic Forum released a report in January 2016 claiming that we will lose a net 5 million jobs by 2020. This is an estimation based on a subtraction of 7 million jobs but an