Will Automation cause a Job crisis?
-Saikat Roy
Every technological leap forward in human history has been accompanied by marked changes in ways of living
and working. Inevitably, such leaps forward have precipitated changes in means of livelihood for a significant
section of the society and may have caused temporary job losses as well. For instance, after the invention of the
Spinning jenny during the industrial revolution, large numbers of traditional hand spinners lost their jobs. There
are stories of how the hand-spinners attacked Spinning mills and destroyed the new machines.
Did those incidents reverse the industrial revolution? No. Were the hand spinners permanently and irrevocably
pushed into poverty and never found gainful employment again? Likely not. Instead, the more diligent of those
hand spinners might have upskilled themselves in alignment to the new ways of working and are likely to have
found gainful employment in one of the big mills that begun dotting the English landscape at the turn of the 19th
century. So, the Spinning jenny which was once the enemy eventually must have become the proverbial bread
and butter for many of these spinners.
With automation, we see a similar situation arising across industries. In many ways, automation is the Spinning
jenny of our age. And just like the Spinning jenny, we can’t halt automation or the march of progress even if we
are afraid of the change it portends on our ways of living and working. And as history suggests, the march of
progress is remarkably robust in replacing the opportunities that it eliminates, arguably with better ones. While
older and legacy jobs die out, new innovation creates opportunities for employment in newer sectors and areas.
So, to summarize- with automation I see realignment of jobs and opportunities instead of an outright elimination
of opportunities. High skilled automation enabled jobs will replace manual effort heavy traditional jobs. Will this
realignment cause a massive change in the way we work and make and living? Yes. Can it cause temporary job
losses and compel realignment and upskilling? Yes. Will it create an irrevocable and permanent job crisis?
Definitely not.