Introduction
In an attempt to find out why most governments and economists encourage technological changes even though it increases structural unemployment, it is important to first and foremost understand the meanings of ‘technological change’ and ‘structural unemployment’. Technological change refers the improvement of processes that make it easier to produce more, efficiently and at reduced inputs. On the other hand, structural unemployment refers to a situation where skills needed to produce efficiently cannot be matched to appropriate unemployed persons due to technological change – in other words, it refers to inefficiencies in the labor market.
Governments and economists and encourage technological change in order to efficiently improve
This change brings about new product and services thereby creating new avenues of wealth creation in an economy. For example, with advent to online market places, goods and service from different regions can easily be advertised, paid for, sold and shipped easily providing different levels of employment and income models such as for shipping companies, mobile money processing service providers, internet connectivity companies among other opportunities. This diversified creation of opportunities increases production and boosts an economy’s real GDP. In this way, the opportunity cost of the above example is increased cost of training of workers for the new skills required to perform above tasks. This said, the advantages of technological change out-weigh the associated training costs. Consequently, governments and economists support technological change despite risks of structural
This said, there are dangers of structural unemployment which are a by-product of technological change which must be addressed. However, the advantages of technological change such as efficiency in production with reduced inputs outweighs the problems of structural unemployment and this is why governments and economists continue to support technological change despite structural unemployment.
References
Rittenberg, L. and Tregarthen, T. (2012). Macroeconomics Principles V. 2.0. Licensed under Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)
Training. United States Department of Labor. Retrieved 24 May 2017, from
First, Structural unemployment occurs when the entire makeup of an economic system experiences fundamental problems such as uneven labor distribution across industries and a lack of skilled workers to fill these positions. Structural unemployment is not caused by changes in supply and demand as the other major types of unemployment. Instead, this kind of unemployment happens because of significant changes in the use of new technologies such as robotics and a.i. Advancements can create
Similar to Craft (2004b), Craft (2004a) uses a similar method to explore the effects the steam engine had on labor productivity growth. The difference between these two pieces is that Craft (2004a) studies the short-term effects that the steam engine had on productivity growth since he focuses only during the Industrial Revolution. However, both pieces explore the steam engines impact on growth by focusing on the contribution to growth of productivity. Craft (2004a) analogous to Craft (2004b) uses an embodied innovation growth accounting context (p.525). Craft (2004a) explains that technology contributes to growth in two ways. Technology can first contribute to growth by increasing the productivity by the fact that new technology is more beneficial
This disruption gives those who have lost their jobs to improve themselves by furthering their education. The psychological effects on displaced workers only last until they find a replacement job. Today, the national unemployment rate is at five percent according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Databases). Economic experts believe that technological advances are expanding at a faster rate than humans can learn to manage and adapt to the new skills necessary to survive in the evolving labor
Technology enables students and teachers to have a fast and easy way to acquire unlimited access to tons of information. With all of the useful technologies, the curriculum is bound to change in endless ways, creating more opportunity for learning.
Technology unemployment is unemployment due to our discovery of means of economizing the use of labor outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labor. (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011)
Deindustrialisation impacts the western world in a widely negative way, during the past 25 years, employment in manufacturing as a share of total employment has fallen dramatically
Technology has become a part of life for most of the human beings, and now is used in businesses and work places instead of humans. The increase in unemployment rate is likely to be caused by the progress of technology. The article “Thinking Machines Makers Debate Ethics of Replacing Humans in Jobs” by
Government policy environment – a desire to reduce unemployment and make the economy attractive to inward investment as a source of employment and long-term growth
Watching my grandpa use an iPhone is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. He acts like a fish out of water. Daily life has changed over the past hundred years because of advancements in technology such as reading, games, and communication. First, there are many changes in the material that we read a stone tablet is no longer required. Second, there have been many changes in the games children play because of technology board games re a thing of the past.
The disparities between the two views of the economy lead to very different policies that have produced contradictory results. The Keynesian theory presents the rational of structuralism as the basis of economic decisions and provides support for government involvement to maintain high levels of employment. The argument runs that people make decisions based on their environments and when investment falls due to structural change, the economy suffers from a recession. The government must act against this movement and increase the level of employment by fiscal injections and training of the labour force. In fact, the government should itself increase hiring in crown corporations. In contrast the Neoliberal theory attributes the self-interest of individuals as the determinant of the level of employment.
In a recap, the three policies introduced, the Unemployment Reformation Act of 2059, the Infinite Education Opportunities Program Act, and the Unity Tax, will be a vital part in restoring and surpassing expectations for decreasing the percentage of Americans unemployed by ten to fifteen percent within the next six to eight months. I believe that with these policies the chances of a recession will not occur for a long period of time. For that matter, a recession may not occur again depending on how successful the unemployment plans develop. Nevertheless, I predict that by the year 2109 the employment rate for Americans will reach eighty-three to eighty-five percent.
Mouhammed, A. H. (2011). Important theories of unemployment and public policies. Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 12(5), 100-110.
Ever since the Industrial Revolution (1780s), the impact of technology has been subject to public debate over its effect on employment – does it cause unemployment or does it underlie the huge increases in standards of living (Jones 1996, p.11)? While it is difficult to ascertain the relationship between technology and employment, all that can be said with any certainty is that technological advancement has the capacity to create revolutionary economic and social changes (Jones 1996, p.21). In order to provide a clear analysis of the impact of technology on employment, we need to take into account the consequences of technological transitions and seek to relate these to social, economic, political, and cultural factors occurring at the time.
However, despite the long-term economic growth, technological progress is very important, and even if we...
Due to the dependence on non-internal markets, Singapore is more vulnerable to repercussions and actions of the global markets and as a result, the global recession had impacted unemployment rates heavily, which had resulted in a rise in unemployment. Putting that aside, Singapore is known to be among one of the highest employment ratings in the world. Another form of unemployment which is a challenge to Singapore is structural unemployment. Moving alongside Singapore’s speedily developing economy is its shift from being a labour intensive economy to a capital intensive one. This is inescapably met with the challenge of the substitutions of skills in the labour force of Singapore. For example, the recent shift into the biomedical and Research and Development (R&D) industries subject workers who can only work in the lower end of manufacturing industries tend to find themselves unemployed because the mass production work is usually outsourced to other economies that are developing. In order to solve this issue, the government of Singapore had invested a large sum in training and education, with and average of one in four citizens who were employed in 2010 to be degree holders, therefore allowing citizens of Singapore to remain relevant and