Technology, helping or hurting Employment?

What would you feel like if your job was suddenly taken by a bunch of wires and electronic chips? Many people across the world lose there jobs every day because of new technology. Many people are also hired to create new technology and program the computers to do the job efficiently and well done. So what impact does technology have on the economy and more importantly jobs. Many people have to find new work in different fields of work because their job was taken by a machine. This is called displacement. In this essay we will discuss the effect technology has on employment.Most people think that technology only has been taking jobs for only the last 20 years. Believe it or not, technology and machines have been taking jobs for almost 200 years. In 1811 people in England who were worried about economic risks were called Luddites. These people were so worried about technology taking over their jobs they led a revolt against the machines of that time. It lasted from 1811 to 1816. Ultimately their efforts were in vein as they could not stop the technological process. Then in 1933 the American Institute of Physics launched a campaign to try to make the publics view on technology one that would create jobs, not take away jobs. Ironically in their campaign they could never give any arguments that stated that technology would not cause a serious problem for many. In today’s society people are actually trying to get rid of jobs with technology. A writer said this in an article he wrote, "My job for fifteen years 1975-1990 had been to write computer programs to make people redundant.”

The problem with technology taking jobs is that people face displacement or unemployment. Usually the jobs they take after being laid off are jobs with low salary amounts. The effect on the economy is awful because the supply of everything will go really high but people who would buy it will not be making a good salary, so no one will be able to buy it.A good example of how machines have hurt employment is the farming horse. Horses were used all the time to plow fields and do all kinds of farming activities. Suddenly tractors and all this new technology became apart of farming and the horse was made obsolete. In the economy this could happen to a lot of jobs. In fact, it already has. Bank tellers completely erased for the general public because of ATMs. Administrators for offices, computers now organize meetings, give reminding notes and collect messages. Assemble line jobs for manufacturing businesses have been cut dramatically, machines can create a car with very little human assistance. All of these examples are machines making work a lot more efficient but they are killing the employment rate.In our culture today everything is about efficiency, quality and productivity. Humans in the workforce can make mistakes, work slow, be grumpy and have personnel things that deteriorate the workplace. This is why companies like to have machines. Machines do everything right, are not lazy and don’t need to be paid. Over all technology is creating more efficient, more specialized machines that are making the need for human labor obsolete. If we remember the Luddites me must learn from them but take a different approach. We must use technology but watch for the negative effects of using it.

Byron Oudman ****BACK TO HOME PAGE****