NEW
YORK – Technology innovators and CEOs seem positively giddy nowadays
about what the future will bring. New manufacturing technologies have
generated feverish excitement about what some see as a Third Industrial
Revolution. In the years ahead, technological improvements in robotics
and automation will boost productivity and efficiency, implying
significant economic gains for companies. But, unless the proper
policies to nurture job growth are put in place, it remains uncertain
whether demand for labor will continue to grow as technology marches
forward.
Recent
technological advances have three biases: They tend to be
capital-intensive (thus favoring those who already have financial
resources); skill-intensive (thus favoring those who already have a high
level of technical proficiency); and labor-saving (thus reducing the
total number of unskilled and semi-skilled jobs in the economy). The
risk is that robotics and automation will displace workers in
blue-collar manufacturing jobs before the dust of the Third Industrial
Revolution settles.
Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/technology-labor-automation-robotics-by-nouriel-roubini-2014-12#ZKbfb8gl7JwVBpKI.99
Nouriel Roubini is an American professor of Economics at New York University`s Stern School of Business and chairman of RGE Roubini Global Economics