Computer and Broadband Access: The Impact of Automation on the Future of Work
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All skill development and workforce training occurs within the context of a regional labor market. Today's globally-interconnected economy is characterized by rapidly advancing automation, like robotics, disruptive technologies, and innovations that cause industry sectors to transform on an ongoing basis.
The U.S. Census Bureau and Pew Research Center have recently issued updated data for cellphone and smartphone ownership data, household ownership of smartphones, various types of computers, and Internet broadband access.
Smartphone and Computer Capacity, and Internet Broadband Access
The Pew report includes a number of additional interesting elements, including the proportion of users who only use smartphones, and lack any other type of computer (about 15 percent of the total, concentrated among low income and less educated individuals). The historical charts here incorporate these data. Note that cellphone ownership is for persons, and the other data below pertain to households. The Census Bureau data are available from the Table S2801 series with no narrative explanations at Census Data.
The Pew data are not consistent with other survey data on cellphone ownership (only available through 2010), as the Pew data show lower personal ownership rates. However, because the Pew data are available for many recent years, its data is substituted for other, higher estimates used.
Understanding the Impact of Automation on Industry Restructuring
Business innovations, like automation or artificial intelligence, and economic pressures lead to the restructuring of industries. This results in changes in their industry staffing patterns, and this impacts the type of skilled labor that businesses employ. So, modified or new occupations arise from job classifications that are constantly evolving and emerging. Businesses may even combine duties and functions, drafting new job descriptions to create different mixes of requisite skill sets. The World Economic Forum released Towards a Reskilling Revolution: A Future of Jobs for All that offers insight into this dynamic.
The Impact of Automation on the Future of Work
Many economists and policy makers are seeking to understand the potential impacts of increasing automation and use of artificial intelligence in the workplace. ETA has compiled a bibliography of studies on the impact of automation—many of which use O*NET occupational information—along with selected other descriptors (like the amount of interaction with people) in the analysis.
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- Posted by: Katie Mehle
- Posted in: LMI Central