Business software has changed the world of work in so many ways.
Speed, efficiency, and cost-savings are just some of the long-term benefits of software usage.
However:
MIT academics Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, in a 2013 Technology Review feature, asserted that “advances in computer technology – from improved industrial robotics to automated translation services – are largely behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15 years.”
There are also these statistics from an Associated Press analysis, as reported by the New York Daily News:
- Between 2000 and 2010, over 1.1 million secretarial jobs were replaced by software allowing bosses to answer calls themselves and arrange their own trips and meetings.
- Over the same period, according to the U.S. Labor statistics, jobs went down by 64% for telephone operators, 63% for typists and word processors, 46% for travel agents, and 26% for bookkeepers.
- 66% of the 7.6 million middle-class positions in Europe vanished because of technology, as estimated by Maarten Goos, an economist at the University of Leuven in Belgium.
It wasn’t all bad news, however. In a Forbes article also published in 2013 by people technology analyst Josh Bersin, big data provider Burning Glass Technologies noted that:
- From 2007 to 2012, the number of software jobs grew by 31%, three times faster than U.S. jobs overall.
- Over the last five years, software job growth in different industries was as follows: manufacturing, 31%; healthcare, 72%; financial services, 40%; retail, 98%.
While some jobs are being automated out of existence, the need for qualified software specialists has dramatically increased over the years.
Business Software substitution and the threat it poses to executive-level positions
In 2014, Business Insider’s Julie Bort reported that at The American Enterprise Institute, Bill Gates said:
“Software substitution, whether it’s for drivers or waiters or nurses, it’s progressing. Twenty years from now, labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower.”
In a Computer World article, also published in 2014, Peter Sondergaard, research director at Gartner, said:
“Knowledge work will be automated. Gartner predicts one in three jobs will be converted to software, robots, and smart machines by 2025. New digital businesses require less labor; machines will make sense of data faster than humans can.”
Fortune.com presents five white-collar positions robots, computers, and artificial intelligence are already dominating, jobs that a few years ago seemed invulnerable:
- Financial and sports reporters
- Online marketing specialists
- Anesthesiologists, surgeons, and diagnosticians
- E-discovery lawyers and law firm associates
- Financial analysts and advisors
Just recently, an April 2015 Harvard Business Review article by Devin Fidler of the Institute for the Future, a nonprofit research organization, foresees that automation is poised to disrupt not just low-skill and middle-management jobs but C-level executive positions as well:
“It will not be possible to hide in the C-suite for much longer. The same cost/benefit analyses performed by shareholders against line workers and office managers will soon be applied to executives and their generous salaries.”
Should you be worried?
While the above reports, save for one, identify a legitimate cause for alarm, an IMF.org piece by James Bessen, a lecturer at the Boston University School of Law, says:
“Despite fears of widespread technological unemployment, I argue that the data show technology data largely displacing workers to new jobs, not replacing them entirely.”
One example he cited was ATMs (automated teller machines) performing common bank teller tasks such as taking deposits and dispensing cash.
Although banks rapidly increased their ATM installations, bank teller functions remained:
- In average US urban markets, while the number of tellers went from 20 to 13 in the years between 1988 and 2004 as a result of increased demand for ATMs, the number of bank branches increased by 43% to “compete for a greater market share.”
- ATMs automated some tasks, and tellers went on to perform more valuable roles as part of the “relationship banking team.”
In some areas, as history has shown for centuries, job lost to technology meant new positions springing up, such as in desktop publishing where there’s less work for typographers but more jobs for graphic designers.
While Bessen concedes that new technology will no doubt replace more human jobs, human qualities, such as providing reassurance in volatile financial markets or guiding patients and their families through difficult medical choices, are capabilities computers aren’t about to acquire anytime soon.
New skills for new markets and technologies
An article by Alan Tovey on The Telegraph starts with a somber note:
“Ten million British jobs could be taken over by computers and robots over the next 20 years, wiping out more than one in three roles.”
But just like Bessen, Deloitte senior partner Angus Knowles-Cutler, citing a joint report from Deloitte, the University of Oxford, and accountancy firm Big Four, said that new positions, industries, and jobs requiring the skills computers can’t perform will be created in place of eliminated jobs.
The report also showed that preparation must start now to effectively deal with upcoming changes:
“We need to be educating people five to 10 years away from the workplace with these skills, as well as with the basic broad-based skills of working hard and being able to work well with others.”
The skills the report found unlikely to be replaced by technology are the following:
- Digital know-how
- Creativity
- Entrepreneurship
- Problem-solving
Final word
Software, artificial intelligence, and robots will continually disrupt the labor marketplace. But if history repeats itself, the only way to survive imminent unemployment is the willingness to adopt new skills and technical know-how when the circumstances call for it.
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