Technology is not the monster we think. On the contrary, it could relieve many jobs.

By Victoria Giarrizzo*

What if, instead of fostering unemployment, robotics lead the improvement of labour motivation and promotes the creation of healthier and more attractive jobs?

Since 1995, when the American Jeremy Rifkin published the book “The end of work”, technology has become the bogyman of employment. Economists, sociologists, politicians have been announcing a future of employment destruction, with loads of unemployed people all around the world.

Though it is true that, if a factory that employs 200 workers gets a machine that only needs 10, there are 190 spare workers, there are two realities in the world that make such situation rather positive.

The first is the advance of the boredom syndrome, a problem that robotics can solve. Young people resist to perform routine tasks, such as some of the ones being developed in factories, shops, or offices. Trades such as welder, turner, clerks, cashiers, drivers, are becoming less and less attractive, and if a robot can perform, well, why shouldn’t it do it?

There are at least two indicators of this boredom. One is the increasing absenteeism. It impacts in the industries, the State, offices, etc. SMEs businessmen say that it has become one of their biggest problems. In Argentina, according to the Ministry of Labor, 17% of private sector workers don’t go to work at least one day per month, and in the industrial sector and construction, the rate goes up to at least 20%.

The explanation companies provide is young people’s lack of responsibility, commitment and desire to work. Specialists believe the problem is boredom. Philippe Rothlin and Peter Werder, two experts in business behaviour, developed the concept boreout for this phenomenon, when they found that 15% of clerks are bored at work due to the feeling of losing their time in stuff they are not interested in. In a world where people spend more active time at work than at home, people are looking for work and satisfaction to go along. And robotics comes at the perfect time, replacing packers, copiers, and many other routine activities that less young people feel like doing.

The second indicator of boredom happens in many technical schools, where teenagers get bored in traditional crafts. Teachers complain about how students get distracted by their smartphones. The problem is that, while kids grow up with technology in their pockets, many technical schools still do not add robotics into their curricula. A women from a very vulnerable neighbourhood naively reflected on her one year old grandchild situation, who uses her smartphone’s apps. She said “kids are more intelligent from the start”, and with her husband and sons working in construction, her main concern is where her grandson will work, considering he has other skills.

New destinations

There is, of course, the question of what do we do with the jobs that technology replaces. That is exactly the second positive reality: just as technology destroys routine jobs, it also creates endless more interesting jobs, in areas such as technological design, coding, innovation, or culture. There are companies that hire creatives, designers, engineers or industrial sociologists just to think. Others hire experts in taste or quality

A survey developed by the Movimiento por los Valores, el Bienestar y el Desarrollo Argentino, found interesting data for Argentina: one third of people believe their current job diminishes their well-being; 72% would like to change their job; 36.6% believes he/she is over skilled for what he/she does; and 57.9% believes he/she has skills that couldn’t be developed, mainly linked to arts, sports, entrepreneurship or design, all of them areas where new jobs are being developed. For example, cultural activities and tourism are growing because people find work and pleasure there, and the population is demanding more from those sectors. Truth is that, while in the past young people thought about a profession that could grant them a job, today they think about studying something that gives them pleasure.

Technology can be blamed for unemployment and young people for absenteeism. But what is really going on a production model in which work becomes something healthier in people’s lives.  It has always been said that work is food for the soul, but in modern society this means a job that is interesting and fulfilling.

Indeed, machines will replace many jobs, but that has been occurring since the first industrial revolution, and endless new jobs have always been created. The difference is that now, everything goes on faster. We need experts capable of quickly thinking how to interpret every generations’ interests, visionaries who can forecast how to train young people for the jobs of the future, an education system with flexible and quickly modifiable curricula. We must not fear the demand of more qualified jobs, as young people already own superior technological skills. As we can see, visionaries and planners will be other two new specialties, developed by a technology that may look as the executioner of employment, but could actually make it dignified.

Originally published by Clarin

*Economist of the Movimiento por los Valores, el Bienestar y el Desarrollo Argentino