Is Automation a Threat or a Solution? Exploring How Americans See Automation in the Workplace [Reports]

While the concept of automation has existed since the Industrial Revolution, the term was officially coined in the 1940s by the Ford Motor Company. Since then, it has continued to substantially shape the way Americans live and work.

This year, Google plans to start piloting its voice assistant products for hotels and airlines. Walmart announced in April that they plan on adding almost 4,000 robots to various stores nationwide and integrating cashier-less systems powered by in-store sensors and facial recognition technology.

Yet while these technological innovations are exciting, there’s also a looming fear across the industry that these robots could potentially replace their human counterparts – but research says this likely isn’t the case.

Automation as a Threat to Job Opportunities

Surveys of more than 4,000 U.S. adults conducted by the Pew Research Center in May 2017 and December 2018 seem to indicate workers are more concerned about the future of automation than necessary. According to the survey, 82% of Americans believe that robots will assume much of the work currently done by humans by 2050.

Survey data also shows that most Americans believe widespread automation is likely to have adverse effects. 76% of those surveyed say that mass automation will increase the inequality between the rich and the poor. Meanwhile, only 33% believe that widespread automation would create new, better-paying jobs for humans.

It should come as no surprise that based on the results of the survey so far many Americans support the idea of limiting automation to specific jobs. 85% say that workforce automation should be restricted only to dangerous or ‘dirty’ jobs.

But a report published in January by The Brookings Institution states that roughly 36 million American workers hold jobs with ‘high exposure’ to automation. This means that approximately only 25% of the U.S. workforce is vulnerable to job displacement.

Automation as Solution to Labor Shortage

The labor shortage is on the rise as 22% of skilled workers are set to retire in the next decade, according to a report by the Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte. Coupled with current industry growth over the next decade, companies will need to add another 700,000 skilled workers to meet growing demand. As the report speculates, the manufacturing industry is likely to face challenges in finding qualified talent to fill these vacant positions; automation can fill this void.

In awhite paper recently released by the Association for Advancing Automation, the authors envision that the automation age, as the computer age before it, will usher in new tasks and job titles to reflect the impact of the technology. The study also concludes that roles that include new responsibilities and technologies are likely to experience faster growth.

Former CEO of General Electric Jeff Immelt also shares the view that automation can improve prospects for American workers. “Businesses can only pay workers more if they become more productive” and automation allows human workers to focus on those more valuable tasks, he said.

The Future of Automation

Despite the opposing views on automation, one thing is sure – automation will impact both how people perform their jobs and the types of jobs available in the future. While robotics and artificial intelligence may substitute labor in some ways, they can also be used to complement labor. As stated in The Report of the National Commission on Technology, Automation, and Economic Progress, “technology eliminates jobs, not work.”