Reference no: EM133372787

Case Study: A trip around the world can show how automation both drastically decreases the number of employees needed to produce a given product, and at the same time, increases the quality of the jobs for the employees that remain in terms of the nature of work, the security of work, and the safety of work. For example, in the 1960s a traditional steel mill would require 1,000 employees to produce 500,000 tons of steel. However in 2018, a steel mill in Donawitz, Austria, can produce the same output with just 14 employees. Blue-collar jobs in a traditional steel mill required a great deal of hard, physical, manual labor next to blazing hot blast furnaces, but at the Donawitz facility, all that work has been automated. The work that remains looks more like a videogame, where workers sit in a clean, quiet control room perched above all the fray, monitoring the movement and processing of molten iron ore via a bank of computer screens. When asked what steel production is going to look like in the future, plant manager Wolfgang Eder notes that "it is impossible to predict, but the positive thing is, the jobs surviving in the long run will be really attractive." In addition to enhancing the nature of the work, automation has also radically improved job security. Traditionally, jobs in the manufacturing industry were subject to the whims of supply and demand, and workers were accustomed to being laid off and then reinstated over and over again. In 2018, however, layoffs in the U.S. hit a 50-year low, and most of this could be traced to enhanced stability in the manufacturing sector of the economy. In Detroit, Michigan, for example, PVS Chemical Company has stabilized employment at roughly 800 employees, and has not laid anyone off despite ebbs of demand for its products. CEO David Nicholson notes, "We have become much more careful about letting people go. Most manufacturing jobs today are technology jobs, and it takes a long time to train someone for the role, and thus you're reluctant to let them go for short-term slowdowns." Finally, in terms of enhanced safety, an examination of the Rotterdam shipyards reveals how automation is increasing safety and reducing injuries. In the past, the work of the "stevedores," the local name given to dock-workers, was backbreaking labor that often resulted in a whole host of injuries. Whether due to accidents or just declining physical capacity, most stevedores struggled to work past the age of 45, when they were then either dismissed or placed on permanent permanent disability. Today, the ports are automated and cargo is loaded and unloaded remotely and moved from place to place via driverless vehicles. The threat of injuries is greatly reduced because, whereas in the past, you had a large number of men physically moving heavy containers, you now find one 22-year-old woman with perfect eye-hand coordination orchestrating workflow. Although this type of automation is great when it comes to creating jobs that are more attractive, secure, and safe, however, the downside is that it obviously displaces a lot of workers such as the "stevedores."

Questions:

1. How does the introduction of automation single out certain subpopulations when it comes to securing and holding a job?

2. What can HR professionals, as well as local and federal governments, do to protect these subpopulations?