Unemployment and the Future of Work (Essay Sample)

Name: Instructor: Course: Date: Discussion 4: Unemployment and the Future of Work Part I Question Set 3 3.1 Natural unemployment refers to the rate of unemployment which exists in a country when the economy produces full employment output. When economies are in a period of recession current rate of unemployment is largely higher as compared with natural rate. Nature unemployment is a mix of structural and frictional unemployment. Natural unemployment is depicted by jobless status when people keep coming and going looking for greener pastures up to when they are able to find a new job. 3.2 No, we cannot expect a healthy economy to a large extent to experience zero rate of unemployment. The only way economies can experience zero unemployment rate is only if the economy is overheated severely. Notably, even in this circumstances wages may rise before the rate of unemployment falls to absolute zero. It is worth noting that the United States of America has never experienced this situation where unemployment is zero. The only time when the unemployment rate dropped to 2.5% is during the Korean war when the economy was overheated in 1953. In equal measure, economies can experience negative unemployment rates more especially for the case of cyclical unemployment which may come as a result of the economy exceeding the levels of full employment but it is so rare. 3.3 Unemployment insurance benefits ought to be provided in an economy on the basis of two major arguments. First, the individual who loses his/her job will be able to have some money that he/she can make use in meeting the basic needs (Schmieder et al. 549). This will enable them not to experience poverty at times when they do not have regular income. The benefits that they obtain from this insurance scheme will enable them to keep going while they look for new jobs. Secondly, unemployment insurance benefits will provide much needed support to employees during the period of recession or economic downturn. This will help in reducing the negative impact of recession on the workers who can not find meaning work during the period. 3.4 In the circumstances where the unemployment insurance benefits exceed the incentive of work, the workers who are unemployed or those who have lost their jobs will find no incentive of looking for new job opportunities. This will largely affect the employees who earn low wages and salaries in the labor market. Secondly, if there are many people who are drawing the unemployment insurance benefits, the reserves put aside will drain. It is worth noting that the scheme is funded by individuals who are employed and who are paying state and federal taxes. Part II 1 Radical developments in the field of artificial intelligence and automation are largely transforming future work (Dwivedi et al. 4). These developments have sweeping implications in many economies globally. Automation to a large extent is improving productivity and efficiency in places of work while reducing human error as well as physical labor. Many organizations are embracing the use of artificial intelligence in automating mundane tasks, optimizing labor force mechanisms and processes and more importantly improving the process of making decisions. The current technology has made it possible for the use of data analytics and cloud computing which helps in the processing of data. Therefore, these radical improvements have largely improving efficiency and accuracy in the process of production. Moreover, many jobs in many economies globally are being outsourced and automated. Many large and even multinational companies rely largely on automation so as to reduce the amount of money they use in employing people to offer physical labor. This has led to increased unemployment and income inequalities. Need arises now of retraining employees and redeploying them to different tasks where artificial intelligence can not be employed. 2 From this movie, it is crystal clear that people and robots in the current environment can collaborate in creating equitable job markets in near future. Automated processes and robots can ably be used in automating mundane tasks as well as tasks which need low skills. This will allow employees to put more focus and emphasis on higher skilled tasks which are meaningful. The shift in the job market makes it imperative for organizations to embrace efficient methods in production which are cost effective. The shift will equally reduce income inequalities in the job market by availing jobs which need more skills and which pay higher wages and salaries. Moreover, embracing artificial intelligence and the use of robots will make it possible for organizations to integrate diverse and flexible business models which largely reduce income inequalities in the job market. 3 While watching the movie, a number of ideas came to my mind as it regards re-training of employees and automatio...