Computers and Work
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Computers' Impact on Employment: Deskilling, New Jobs, Telecommuting & Monitoring, Slides of Applications of Computer Sciences
The effects of computers on employment and business, focusing on deskilling and upgrading, new jobs replacing old ones, business opportunities and processes, telecommuting, and computerized performance monitoring. It includes case studies of typesetting and scanning in employment and studies of computer numerical control (cnc) in the machine industry.
Typology: Slides
2012/2013
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Computers and Work
The Impact of Computers on Work!
Effects on Employment
Deskilling/Upgrading
New jobs replace old ones
!
Effects on Business
Business Opportunities
Business Processes
!
Telecommuting
!
Computerized performancemonitoring
Effects on Employment
Given: since the late 1960's we have had many spates of"jobless growth"-- productivity, output and profits are up, butjobs are down-- because of automation, mostly computer-related.
Computers eliminate a much wider variety of jobs than anyother single technology in the past, and more highly skilledjobs.
Effects on job opportunities in particularindustries/organizations range from devastating (metal working,typesetting) to minimal (scanners in stores).
Case studies of Typesetting!
Bruce Gilcrest & Arlanna Shenkin
"
The impact of Automation on Employment
"
ACM SIGCAS bulletin, ”Computers & Society,” Winter 1982; Twocases: New York and Washington DC
Case Studies of Typesetting: NewYork- What Happened?!
Few relevant retraining courses available
!
2 yrs later- only 26 of 44 had jobs
!
The 23 with full time jobs earned only half theirformer earnings
!
Widespread depression/ family breakdown
Case studies of typesetting
Washington
!
At time of automation, 80 of 188 typesettersconvinced to take a $40,000 buyout to avoidbankruptcy of company; 50 located andexamined 2½ years later.
!
Nine women and nine deaf (unlike New Yorkcase)
The impact of scanners on
employment in supermarkets
!
Gilcrest & Shenkin, CACM July 1982
"A fully scanner-equipped supermarket is estimatedto have a 5% lower labor requirement than an non-automated store with the same volume"
How does the computer system of which scannersare a part of decrease labor demands insupermarkets?
The impact of scanners on
employment in supermarkets
!
Nature of industry: small profit margins on gross;
!
High turnover, many part-timers, near minimum wage
!
Few layoffs: let "attrition" decrease labor force.
The impact of scanners on
employment in supermarkets
!
Indirect effects: "Some non-automated stores may becompletely put out of business by a nearbylarge store equipped with scanners"
!
Fewer "mom and pop" small groceries;replaced by supermarket chains
Case studies of effects on employment: the
post office
Projected Reduction, 1980- 2000
Employee Group
Number
Percent
HQ employees
Postmasters
Supervisors
Clerks/sorters
Urban carriers
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The Post Office: Equity Issues
!
The uneven distribution of minority employment among employee groups raises the possibilitythat such reductions may fall disproportionatelyon black and perhaps other minorityemployment,
"since the mail handlers, whose
employment would be reduced the most,has/had one of the highest percentages of blackemployment.”
(OTA summary, p. 69)
The deskilling / upgrading
controversy
!
Deskilling: assertion that information technology will"strip relatively skilled jobs of their conceptual content,"which becomes built into software.
!
New information technologies produce a morepolarized distribution of skill: a mass of unskilledclerical or manual workers at the bottom, and a smallnumber of "conceptual workers" at the top.(Attewell and Rule)
Job Enlargement!
Example: Accountants learned to usespreadsheets and other programs, and nowthey have more time for thinking, planning, andanalysis.
The deskilling / upgrading controversy
!
Case studies: examples of both may be found.
!
However, deskilling seems more frequent
!
Example: automated design jobs. Software todesign the electrical layout for new housingdevelopments can do in half an hour what itused to take a professional 100 hours to do.