jobs « Limits to Growth

Automation Debate: Will Smart Machines Disrupt the Economic Order or Not?

In the dialogue about increasing workplace automation, a lot of the discussion that occurs online follows the pattern of the following Financial Times discussion, which is aimed largely at educated people who are concerned about their own future employment. The argument typically splits between those who think new jobs will develop to replace the old […]

GM Invests $500 Million in Lyft to Develop Self-Driving Cabs

Last June I reported on the Uber ride-sharing service planning to move into self-driving taxis. Now there is news that a competitor is being pumped up by a serious cash injection from General Motors.

Below, Google self-driving prototype cars have been scooting around Silicon Valley during the testing program.

The Wall Street Journal video explained the GM […]

DHS Plan Would Allow Foreign Workers to Stay Indefinitely

These days, it’s hard to keep up with all the creative ways that Washington is working to harm American citizens. In the immigration arena particularly, American interests of national security and citizen employment are being constantly pummeled by open borders and an anti-sovereignty attitude.

One sneaker item was quietly inserted by DHS just before New Years, […]

Automation Threatens Meatpacking Jobs

National Public Radio reports that a major meat processor is considering the addition of robotic machines to its production plants. The machines continue to get smarter and are likely to become equipped with sensing technology before too long that allows them to feel where bones are, a vital skill in butchering a carcass. The improving […]

Inside a Totally Modern Lego Factory: Robots!

A lot of Christmas trees probably had Lego presents under them a few days back, but it was not Santa’s elves who produced the popular building blocks.

In fact, neither elves nor humans have much to do with the production of Lego stuff nowadays, because the automation force is strong in this company.

A recent Daily Mail story […]

Quarter-Mile-Long Container Ship Docks at Los Angeles Port

Here’s a postcard from the expanding globalized economy: outsourced manufacturing requires mega-shipping to transport the cheaply-produced goods back to American consumers.

The latest money-saver for corporations is the biggest container ship ever to land in North America, the CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin, a French-owned ship, which docked on Saturday at the Port of Los Angeles. Built […]

New York Hotel Phone Operators Lose Jobs to Automation

This New York Times report is unusual in that it looks at a small number of jobs lost, an event that usually doesn’t register in the big media. The public reads about it when Microsoft lays off thousands, but many of the jobs lost to automation go in smaller increments, one workplace at a time. […]

Billionaire Investor Says Automation-Caused Job Loss Is a “National Emergency”

It’s nice to see somebody is paying attention to the devastating effect smart machines are having on American jobs, because our elected representatives in Washington certainly aren’t.

Jeff Greene, a wealthy investor, is concerned that white-collar jobs are about to go the way of blue-collar employment in five to 10 years — that’s soon!

The Wall Street […]

Pew Research: America Is No Longer Majority Middle Class

A Pew study (The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground) released on Wednesday found that the number of Americans living in a middle-class household had fallen to below half.

That’s a major event, because America is supposed to be a middle-class nation, not like backward countries such as Brazil where the great majority of people are […]

Amazon Rolls Out New Model Delivery Drone for the Near Future

Along with the many business stories about the Amazon retailer on Cyber Monday, the company used the occasion to release a video about Jeff Bezos’ favorite hobby, a drone delivery robot, a project he announced on Sixty Minutes in 2013.

Jeremy Clarkson, formerly of the British car show Top Gear, told a story about a girl […]

Amazon Automated Warehouses Process 500 Orders per Second

Cyber Monday is a major business story because it is the biggest online shopping day of the year. As a result, many news outlets sent reporters to one of the 13 Amazon “fulfillment centers” around the country where consumer orders are processed, filled and shipped. The sight of items zooming by on speedy conveyor belts […]

Add Sewing Robot to the Advanced Machines Being Developed for Human Worker Replacement

One of the toughest skills for automation engineers to crack is the amazing human hand with its unique dexterity — but it’s not for lack of trying.

Amazon’s highly automated warehouses have thousands of Kiva robots moving racks of merchandise around to human box packers — for now. The company is working to develop a machine […]

Fair Use: This site contains copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of issues related to culture and mass immigration. We believe this constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information, see: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000107----000-.html. In order to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use", you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Limits to Growth