A new study reveals : Robots may replace managers in several industries

A new study reveals : Robots may replace managers in several industries

A new Statistics Canada study shows that since the mid-90s, manager headcount has decreased more often than non-managerial employee headcount has increased while adopting robots. 

The latest StatsCan study examining how employment and organizations have changed in response to robot adoption says Canadian companies automating certain tasks from 1996 to 2017 have 15 percent more workforce relative to other companies in the same industry Were. 

These firms expanded their high and low-skilled workforce, although not their mid-skilled workforce, after investing in robots, indicating that this has led to a shift in managerial activities to newly converted employees. 

The automotive sector is not alone in robot adoption, according to the study, which scrutinized administrative data sources such as employment and performance, and workplace status, showing the overall robot capital stock for each year in Canada over two years Investment has been steadily increasing since the late 1990s. 

This also suggests that there has been a substantial decline in investment growth for automotive assembly robots, in line with the Great Recession deadline. Since 2008, investment in automotive assembly robots has continued to decline, while investment in non-government robots has grown at a rapid pace. 

In 2008, the stock of robots was $ 1.2 billion, half that for automotive assembly lines. According to Statscan, in 2016, Canada was internationally concerned with robot density (145 robots in use per 10,000 employees). As of 2017, less than $ 400 million in total robot stock was in the automotive sector. 

Today, robots are particularly active in the automotive and machinery, electronics and equipment assembly sectors, and the plastics processing and minerals and metals manufacturing industries. Increasingly, enterprises in service sectors such as agriculture, mining, construction, as well as health and waste management, have invested in robots over this period. 

The variation in investment between the two types of robots is consistent with anecdotal evidence that the types of robots being adopted by firms have evolved, from highly customized robots for automotive production to more general purpose robots that are widely used by businesses. 

Can be done. Limitation of Economic Zones. 

As a new general-purpose technology, robots have the potential to transform industries and radically influence employment. However, in contrast to previous studies at the industry level that predicted dramatic employment, it suggests that investment in robotics is associated with an increase in total firm employment, but decreases in the total number of managers.

 It also finds that robot investment is associated with an increase in control periods for the remaining managers within the organization.

Reducing labour costs not the main driver of adoption:

A study by Statscan suggests that robot adoption is not driven by a desire to reduce labor costs, but rather to improve product and service quality. 

These findings are consistent with the notion that robots reduce variance in production processes, with managers having to reduce monitoring to ensure product quality. And now, with rapid advances in vision, speech and prediction capabilities, robotics has moved beyond automating simple routine tasks. Robots are now able to perform more complex tasks and tasks associated with specific types of manual dexterity. 

Studies show that middle-skilled workers, those working in occupations requiring occupational or trades accreditation or associate's degrees, are more likely to perform these tasks.

 For example, in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, robots have been used to handle and prepare materials, follow complex protocols to prepare and analyze samples, and coordinate patient care without human intervention . Companies with significant warehousing and automotive operations have also experienced similar effects. 

Therefore, the study presents consistent evidence of a negative and statistically significant relationship with mid-skilled employment, suggesting that robots displace managerial work that earlier waves of technology were thought to be more difficult to change .

 Furthermore, the results are consistent with the notion that, as robots automate a large proportion of tasks within the organization and reduce variance in the production process, leaving human workers to focus on less predictable tasks in nature are given. 

In addition, the study used novel firm-level data to show that investment in robotics is associated with increased employee turnover and increased overall employment within the firm. According to the 2018 Public Engagement Initiative by the Brookfield Institute "" 

The Impact of Technological Change on Ontario's Workforce ", supported by Ontario's government, the impact of automation on people and workplaces is not necessarily predictable. 

The effects are variable and can be contradictory in different settings. Automation can result in jobs lost through the replacement of human workers by machines, but can also result in jobs gained through increased productivity. A change in automation can set new, high-skilled, high-paying employment, institutions - but very few of them.