Following the wave of unemployment that swept through many countries around the world recently, many researchers have hit the road trying to find out what was responsible.
The first major cause often advanced is the credit crunch. While some believe that this cause alone is responsible for the current high unemployment, there are those that say this plus a host of other factors are the reasons why many people remain unemployed today.
One of those other reasons advanced is automation. Wikipedia describes automation as various control systems for operating equipment such as machinery, processes in factories etc with very minimal human input.
It is plain to see immediately that as human input decreases in the production of goods and services, it is bound to have a negative effect on the labour market.
At first when automation was limited to the production lines, many people welcomed it as it had a drastic effect on the cost of finished goods making them cheaper and more readily available.
Today automation has taken on a more visible role and nowhere else is this more obvious than on the high streets.
Gone are the days of human traffic wardens. These have now been replaced by traffic cameras that record the offence and send this to a central station from which the penalty notices are then issued and sent out.
The supermarkets continue to reduce checkouts with human operators. Today the self checkout has become the preferred check out mode for a lot of customers. Also supermarkets now provide delivery services to those who order online
Banks have now perfected a system that allows customers withdraw or deposit cash and cheques without talking to bank cashiers.
The famous Routemaster buses in London which used to be the cynosure of all eyes because of it's unique shape and conductors has now been redesigned and relaunched without conductors. Passengers must now have little cards which they touch against a yellow point to allow them ride on the bus.
But are all these enough evidence to blame automation solely for the massive across the world?
What about a lot of countries especially in places in Africa where automation is still a very limited part of production?
Picture courtesy of www.ibabuzz.com
To be continued
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