Impact of Technology on jobs

Context:

• Technology has made a number of traditional jobs redundant. For example, ATMs replaced some bank jobs. The new wave of technologies like automation and artificial intelligence is a threat to many jobs. There is an impact of technology on employment opportunities in almost every sector. So, this GD topic – ‘Impact of technology on Jobs’ is one of the most famous GD Topics.

The positive impact of Technology on jobs:

• Technological innovations result in improved lifestyles, and hence consumerism increased and thereby results in more employment opportunities. For example, the industrial revolution created more jobs than it eliminated. If we take the example of 3D printing technology, building houses by 3D printing is a great technological innovation. Eventually, it will result in some job losses in the construction industry at least in the starting. But this innovation will result in creating more affordable homes and hence more and more people may want to buy a house. And so, with more consumers, more houses will be built and hence will create so many jobs but of a different kind.
• Technology increases productivity and hence reduces the burden on workers and eliminates the burden of doing repetitive tasks. For this, workers need to learn some skills to stay employed. It’s just that the workers should be given training for the newly created jobs. If the government takes care of the reskilling of low-skilled workers, we can take advantage of the impact of technology on jobs.
• Due to technology, demand for technically skilled youth is increasing and hence more jobs available for educated youth. This can solve the problem of educated unemployment to some extent.
• Technology helps in the growth of the economy.  Companies that use technology will save so much money by replacing human labour with technological innovations. And thereby they expand their services. And as a result, they create more jobs. More employees will be added to the economy, and more revenue by taxes will come to the government. So, there will be economic growth. This economic growth can be utilised by the government to create more employment opportunities with better pay.
• Technologies have the potential to create large scale jobs in rural areas and hence addresses the rural unemployment issue. Till now, jobs with better pay are concentrated in urban areas.

The negative impact of Technology on jobs:

• The immediate result of new technologies will be job losses because some jobs will become redundant. Machines and automation are replacing low-skilled workers. If any company do not replace human labour with technology, it is susceptible to losses due to heavy competition from other companies which use technology. So, it is inevitable for companies to catch up with the technologies. In this process, low-skilled workers will be the first section to be removed from the jobs. As a consequence of that, income inequalities are further widening.
• Not just the low-skilled, and semi-skilled jobs, even high skilled job are at threat due to the new wave of technologies like Artificial intelligence. This can reduce the employment opportunities available for technically skilled persons.
• At present, a gap in the career will be a big disadvantage due to changing and constantly improving technologies. This may force some women to stay at home after taking maternity leaves.
• Technical advancement is forcing people to continuously update their knowledge to sustain themselves in the job market. This can be too overwhelming for some to balance work and personal life.

Conclusion:-

Technology changes the nature of jobs. Even though some jobs will become redundant, technological advancement has the potential to create many more employment opportunities than it eliminated. Continuous learning and updating the skills is the need of the hour.

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