June 2017: McDonald’s will introduce more than 2500 kiosks in the US locations.
Some don’t feel that humans should do these low paying jobs. Nonetheless, removing all these jobs from the market has drastic impact on employment and other social issues. We need to spread the benefits of automation more broadly. And. especially make sure that the displaced segment of the jobs are somehow supported in some other fashion.
By the way the reason this automation is happening is the direct result of the rise of the minimum wage to $15 in some states and soon all over the nation.
So in a nutshell, does anyone know the impact of automation on the human capital side of things? on the social issues it will bring and how will it impact the employment and social empowerment?
Only time will tell. And, there is also an important factor which automation purveyors miss: many will be un-employed from this trend, there is no denial about this. What will all those unemployed people do with their free time and strengths? They will have plenty more time to think about how to topple the forces that brought in the automation in first place and will lead to some kind of anarchy. Not a good comparison maybe because automation did not create unemployment in the Middle Eastern, North African and Arabian regions but major studies conclude that high unemployment, desperate future for the young generation and lack of jobs seems to have pushed some youth towards radicalization and anarchy. Let’s hope that the roadmap to automation will not create the same platform in the developed countries…
Posted by: Hal Tezcan