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Time to rethink our perspective on jobs
No industry is exempt, and no country, no matter how protected, is able to escape the elimination of jobs “of the past”.
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No industry is exempt, and no country, no matter how protected, is able to escape the elimination of jobs “of the past”. (Shutterstock/File)
T
echnology and jobs, whither goest thou? Whether in Indonesia or the United States, it is time to pause and assess the very real impact of technology’s advances on those who will lose their jobs today as the so-called “jobs of tomorrow” are created.
Too often, “globalized” business leaders and macroeconomists blindly welcome every advance in productivity, while investors in turn reward news of resulting job reductions with an upward tick in share prices.
As technology advances, and wealth is increasingly concentrated, the challenges of job creation and the need for bipartisan discussion on a way forward grow more increasingly pressing.
According to Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report 2016, the top one percent in Russia controls nearly 75 percent of that nation’s wealth. For India, the figure is 58.4 percent; Indonesia, 40 percent; Brazil, 48 percent; China 43.8 percent; and the United States, 42 percent.
And in a report released early this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos by Oxfam, the world’s eight richest billionaires now control the same wealth as do the poorest half of the earth’s population.
It is no surprise then that inequality — its causes and possible solutions — is an ubiquitous topic of discussion. The debate over economic inequity rages in the East as in the West.
Raising employment levels is seen as a major challenge for developing and developed economies alike.
