TPT September 2019

G LOBA L MARKE T P L AC E

Oxford Economics also found the more repetitive the job, the greater the risk of it being wiped out. Jobs which require more compassion, creativity or social intelligence are more likely to continue to be carried out by humans “for decades to come”. The firm called on policymakers, business leaders, workers and teachers to think about how to develop workforce skills to adapt to growing automation. About 1.7 million manufacturing jobs have already been lost to robots since 2000, including 400,000 in Europe, 260,000 in the USA, and 550,000 in China. Oxford Economics predicts that China will have the most manufacturing automation, with as many as 14 million industrial robots by 2030, while in the UK, several hundreds of thousands of jobs could be replaced. However, if there was a 30 per cent rise in robot installations worldwide the firm estimates it would create $5trn in additional global GDP. The report forecasts that, on a global level, jobs will be created at the rate they are destroyed. Growth of IoT in agriculture telecomstechnews.com reported the evolution of the global agricultural sector, as applications for Internet of Things (IoT) technology disrupts more traditional methods of farming: “How agriculture’s digital transformation is being enabled by IoT apps” . With case studies that target several different segments of the market already available, new solutions are being created to evolve more segments. The fact that there is no single, specific problem experienced by all farmers and ranchers has led to the development of a variety of different solutions, notably including water usage concerns from the government and projected population growth over the next three decades. By 2024 over two million farms and 36 million cattle will be connected, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research . There is a significant upside opportunity for IoT apps within the agricultural market – specifically connected agriculture in field crops, tree crops and livestock. For field and tree crops, the primary driver for the introduction of connectivity and the IoT is not only to irrigate sufficiently, but also to limit excess water application for usage efficiency and to align with government regulation. For livestock, it is about collecting data relating to the health of the animals, including birthing activities, as well as knowledge of their whereabouts. Expected benefits As with any manufacturing industry, all agriculture sectors are looking for improved yields, a higher quality product and greater insight to more efficiently manage their operations.

paper, “ How robots change the world”, from analysis firm Oxford Economics . People displaced from those jobs are likely to find that comparable roles in the services sector have also been squeezed by automation, the firm said, adding, however, that increasing automation will also boost jobs and economic growth. Oxford Economics went on to call for action to prevent a damaging increase in income inequality, claiming each new industrial robot wipes out 1.6 manufacturing jobs, with the least-skilled regions being most affected. Regions where more people have lower skills, which tend to have weaker economies and higher unemployment rates anyway, are much more vulnerable to the loss of jobs due to robots. Moreover, workers who move out of manufacturing tend to get new jobs in transport, construction, maintenance, and office and administration work – which in turn are vulnerable to automation. On average, each additional robot installed in those lower-skilled regions could lead to nearly twice as many job losses as those in higher-skilled regions of the same country, exacerbating economic inequality and growing political polarisation. The pockets of workers most vulnerable to automation can often be found in rural areas with a traditional, labour- intensive industrial base. Oregon is said to be the US state most likely to be affected, while the worst-hit region in the UK is likely to be Cumbria. Oxford Economics said that metropolises such as London, Tokyo, Paris or Seoul are likely to be less affected, while regions that surround knowledge-intensive cities such as Toulouse and Grenoble in France, or Munich and Stuttgart in Germany, typically show much lower levels of vulnerability. A Bloomberg writer commented that “we’ve seen plenty of predictions that robots are about to put everyone, from factory workers to journalists, out of a job, with white collar work suddenly vulnerable to automation. But this report presents a more nuanced view, stressing that the productivity benefits from automation should boost growth, meaning as many jobs are created as lost.” And while the report sees robots moving out of the factories and into service industries, it is still in manufacturing that they will have the most impact, particularly in China where “armies of workers” could be replaced by machines. Where service jobs are under threat, they are in industries such as transport or construction rather than the law or journalism and it is low-skilled people who may have moved from manufacturing who are vulnerable. The challenge for governments is how to encourage the innovation that the robots promise, while making sure they do not cause new divides in society.

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SEPTEMBER 2019