Leanna Garfield writing in BI this week outlines how the the New Zealand-based robotics company, Scott Technology Limited is developing fully-automated meat processing bots, which can extract different cuts from lamb, pig, and beef carcasses. Many meatpacking companies believe using this type of technology (rather than human workers) will make processing more efficient. Garfield points out:
The world’s largest meat production company, JBS, is already investing in it. As NPR reported, the Brazil-based corporation bought a controlling share of Scott Technology late last year, in a deal valued at $41 million.
Some great work from Amanda Cox at the New York Times looking at US Labour Markets:
At every age, the chances of not working have changed in the last 15 years. Teenagers are far more likely not to work. Older people are retiring later and working more. In the ages in between — the periods of life when most people work — the changes have been smaller, but they are still substantial.
Source: New York Times
In the late 1960s, almost all men between the ages of 25 and 54 went to work. Only about 5 out of every 100 did not have a job in any given week. By 2000, this figure had more than doubled, to 11 out of every 100 men. This year, it’s 16. (People in the military, prison and institutions are excluded from these figures.)
This from the Atlantic:
In 1974, the radio broadcaster Studs Terkel published a book of profiles to have “people talk about what they do all day and how they feel about what they do.” The title of the book was, simply, Working.
Source: The Atlantic
That was appropriate. Working was what people did all day, particularly if they were men in their 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s. In the 1970s, as in previous decades, about 95 percent of men between the age of 25 and 54 were either working or actively looking for their next job. Only 5.5 percent of them were what economists consider “inactive”—out of the labor force.
But somebody revisiting Terkel’s project in the next decade would be encouraged to find a more flexible title. In each decade since the 1970s, the inactivity rate for 25-54-year-old men—the share of guys neither working nor actively seeking a job—has gone up. Each decade, not working becomes more and more a part of what we’re doing all day.
A recent tweet from the NTEU ACT Division (@NTEUACT)
Australia has 2nd highest level of insecure work in OECD – after Spain.
We know that we are approaching 40% of the workforce undertaking insecure work.
Forms of Employment – Australia 2011
*Source: Lives on Hold – Unlocking the potential of Australia’s workforce.
We also hear much about “skills shortages” and the need for “flexibility”, yet the “elephant-in-the-room” when it comes to REAL skills shortages is the glaring lack of wage INCREASES – if skills were not present, wages would [should] go up… but more on that later.
Leigh Hubbard also has a worthwhile article in the latest Australian Nursing Journal making the point that this issue extends well beyond the “blue collar” phenomenon and extends to schools, universities and health professionals.
This is a critical economic and social policy issue for modern economies and something that touches all levels of Australian society. Increasing stressors within modern families and the wider community should not be underestimated. We have seen the historical tensions and results of disengagement and lack of opportunity in places like Hackney in the UK, and many who live and work in suburban and rural and regional Australia will also understand the social and economic pressures of day to day life. Even something as simple as a bus-ride can suggest underlying tensions in communities that are sadly, too familiar.
We are now in a position where, more than ever before, risk [in its broadest sense] is being outsourced at EVERY point of the life cycle; schooling, education, training, health, employment housing, manufacturing. All of these endeavours are changed by the rapid and transitory flow of capital investment. Stakes are so high, the risk and rewards so great, that the ability of many “traditional” enterprises to “invest” has altered markedly.
Investment now appears transitory, patterns looking much more like speculation than investment. Within the space of one generation or less, we now see returns needed on schedules of less than a decade, sometimes less than five years, when less than a generation ago, “investments” were considered inter-generational and conversely the skills and employment opportunities grew from this base.
Non Standard Employment Growth in Australia 1992-2009
*Source: Lives on Hold – Unlocking the potential of Australia’s workforce.
This is no longer the case and the implications for education and training and the preparation of young people for modern labour markets has NEVER been more important. Now is the time to improve the conditions, quality and scope of our education sectors, if for no other reason, so investment in our social contract does not wane…
Research:
Lives On Hold – Independent Inquiry in to Insecure Work [PDF]
