Is technology destroying men's jobs? In a future, not too distant, made of drones, driverless cars and robots that will be able to replace (almost) all human activities, one would definitely think so. And there is some truth if you think of the business models of leading companies of this historical period, such as Amazon, Google and Uber.
But historically this is not the case: to prove it is a study conducted by Delotte and published by Guardian, which analyzes data from England and Wales over the past 150 years. “Is technological progress taking our jobs? Or is it simply easing our workload?” asks the authoritative British newspaper. The answer, in light of the evolution from 1871 to today, is that technology was ultimately nothing more than a “great job-creating machine”.
First, technology has increased purchasing power and, therefore, the creation of new demand and new jobs. And then, if anything, it has transformed working horizons: if on the one hand it is undeniably true that today there are automatic checkout machines in supermarkets, that taxi drivers will soon be replaced by smart cars and that the postal service will be carried out using drones, it is also true – given hand – that from 1950 to today the bar staff has quadrupled, just as there has been a boom - for example - of hairdressers and accountants.
“The dominant trend – explain the authors of the research – is a contraction of employment in agriculture, industry and in general in hard work, compensated however by a remarkable growth in the areas of caring, services and of course technology itself“. Yes, because according to many currents of thought in the contemporary era basically two categories of works are being saved: those ad very high specialization (particularly in information technology and management, through studies in exclusive universities and/or capabilities complementary to those of machines); and those based in some way on confidence (so defined in the Research: teaching and educational support assistants, welfare, housing, youth and community workers, care workers and home carers), who will be able to represent the professions of the future for the classes that do not have access to higher qualifications, in areas where technology – for now – is not able to replace the human relationship.
However, the risk that technology ends up swallowing an increasingly large part of the human workforce, even if this has not occurred up to now (or rather it has occurred only in part), there is indeed. Ian Stewart, Debapratim De and Alex Cole, authors of the research for Deloitte admit it: “Machines will take on increasingly repetitive and tiring tasks, and they don't seem to be never been as close as now to eliminating the need for human labor, than at any other time over the past 150 years.”
