How will robotization of retail stores influence the labor market?
One of the most common questions people ask is how we make a technological change. We cannot leave technological change to Fate. According to research was done by a consultancy firm, The UK economy has removed more than 500,000 jobs from the economy since 2000. The research also shows that more than 11 million jobs have the chance of being automated within the next 10 years.
Automation may become so much that we will regard it as the most urgent issue in the economy. The problem is that there is no minister for this new technology. There is also no commissioner that is ready to look at the impact that robots will have on the economic or the dilemmas they will pose. There is no institution that can establish how wealth created and time liberated by robots will be shared equally among the citizens. A driver-less car will lead to higher efficiency in our existing road network and cars will have vast improvements in freight delivery times, and that means that there will be massive displacement of jobs in the transportation industry.
The first automation unleashed the power of capitalism and changed the society. The industrial revolution brought us town halls, libraries, galleries, public statues, grand squares, and museums. The wave of industrialization raised the human conditions and capability, but it also created vast misery, and upheavals such as infectious disease, child labor, and infant mortality.
Today, we live in an hourglass economy when only those at the top of the society have access to the existing wealth. Jobs at the low end of paid jobs cannot be automated, but there is a significant risk of unemployment for those jobs in the middle.
Automation is the capacity of machinery and robots to replace human labor. Automation has led to reduced wage costs, increased labor productivity and increase profit margins. On the other hand, it has led to the rise in unemployment.
The use of robotics and machinery is has grown globally after the cutback during the 2009 economic recession. Automation can help companies to save money and at the same time increase unemployment. Automation help to increase company’s profits during the time that transportation and manufacturing costs squeezed their profit.
Automation can be used to fill labor shortages: China, for instance, has used automation to counteract the decline of its labor force. Automation can help to improve countries competition to enhance labor productivity.
On the other hand, the growing use of robotics and automation can contribute to long-term structural unemployment, which means unemployment will arise as a result of the shift in the skills needed by an economy.
The most automatize activities
The retail health sector has a high potential for automation. Research shows that 53% of the activities in this sector are an automobile. Retailers can take advantage of technology-driven stock management, efficient and logistics.
Packaging objects for stocking merchandise and shipping are the most frequent physical activities in retailing. So is gathering product information, maintaining sales records and other data collection activities. However, retailing requires social and cognitive skills because advising customers on what shoe color to buy or meat to cut requires emotional and judgmental intelligence. Research has shown that the retail industry has 47% automation potential. However, just because a job can be automated doesn’t mean that it will be automated. Only, Jobs that require a high level of skills will be automated. For instance, the jobs of accountants, bookkeepers, and auditing clerks need heavy training, but they require only a computer and a software to automate.
