![]() On the other hand, technological progress has also caused many social problems, such as the technological unemployment caused by robotization, changes in the labor force structure and skill structure, the placement and reemployment of low-skilled workers, and the transformation and governance of labor relations. Whether it is the rising labor cost faced by employers or the labor rights abuse that workers are concerned about, it seems that they can all be solved with the help of technology upgrading. On the one hand, technology-driven changes in modes of production can accelerate industrial transformation and upgrading, promote labor-intensive industries to capital and technology-intensive, and replace demographic dividends with technological dividends. Intelligent equipment and smart production lines, such as those utilizing industrial robots and automated high-end computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools, are listed as key development areas.Īs China is striding toward intelligent manufacturing, we have also noticed the "double-edged sword" effect of technology. The government regards intelligent manufacturing as the main direction of manufacturing the next two decades. According to the macro policy on manufacturing development formulated by the State Council, China will continue to upgrade as a major manufacturing country and enhance the overall competitiveness of the manufacturing industry. In this context, the Chinese government has proposed "intelligent manufacturing" as the macro-objective of industrial upgrading, aiming to transform its developmental path through technology-driven industrial upgrading. The disappearance of the demographic dividend has greatly weakened China's comparative advantage as a "world factory." Frequent labor conflicts hinder the country's social stability and harmony. The original equipment manufacturing (OEM) model that has been in existence for more than 30 years has repeatedly withstood the collateral effects of economic crises in European and American countries. China is now in a critical period of manufacturing transformation and industrial upgrading. Digitization, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and cloud computing have become the keywords of this round of industrial revolution. "Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation.A new round of technological revolution is triggering a new industrial revolution on a global scale. I argue that the interplay between machine and human comparative advantage allows computers to substitute for workers in performing routine, codifiable tasks while amplifying the comparative advantage of workers in supplying problem-solving skills, adaptability, and creativity. The final section of this paper reflects on how recent and future advances in artificial intelligence and robotics should shape our thinking about the likely trajectory of occupational change and employment growth. In the last few decades, one noticeable change has been a "polarization" of the labor market, in which wage gains went disproportionately to those at the top and at the bottom of the income and skill distribution, not to those in the middle however, I also argue, this polarization is unlikely to continue very far into future. Journalists and even expert commentators tend to overstate the extent of machine substitution for human labor and ignore the strong complementarities between automation and labor that increase productivity, raise earnings, and augment demand for labor.Ĭhanges in technology do alter the types of jobs available and what those jobs pay. However, automation also complements labor, raises output in ways that leads to higher demand for labor, and interacts with adjustments in labor supply. In this essay, I begin by identifying the reasons that automation has not wiped out a majority of jobs over the decades and centuries.Īutomation does indeed substitute for labor-as it is typically intended to do.
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