Technology has created more jobs than it’s destroyed over the last 140 years, research from Deloitte has found.
Since the Luddites in the 1800’s people have feared that technology is going to replace humans in the workplace. However Deloitte has studied 140 years of census results to conclude that as technology continues to take on the more repetitive tasks in industries such as manufacturing, consumer spending power has increased, creating the demand for more service based jobs.
This represents a brighter outlook than the job-destroying effects of technology which are often publicised.
Deloitte’s conclusions are echoed by French Caldwell, a former fellow at Gartner (where he specialised in emerging risks and technologies) and now chief evangelist of GRC at MetricStream.
He said: “The sluggish jobs recovery and post-recession rise in income inequality have prompted some economists and technologists to place the blame squarely on the metaphorical shoulders of machines. A fundamental shift has taken place in the nature of work, they argue, and companies are adding automation rather than hiring more workers.
“In fact, the opposite may be true. I have spent the past couple decades analysing technology and its impact on business and find arguments that machines and automation are the main drivers of the slow jobs recovery and rising inequality unconvincing.
“In my current research looking into how disruptive technology affects public policy, I have discovered that many other factors, such as delays in productivity gains from large information technology investments and a decline in business dynamism and entrepreneurship, have contributed as much or more to these trends.
“Fears that automation is keeping companies from hiring new workers and exacerbating income inequality are overblown, in part because the oft-repeated productivity gains from information technology are often illusory in the first place.”