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What do higher ed technology people talk about when we get together to talk? We talk about robots.
We love robots, but at the same time we worry that robots (and every other technology) will eventually take all the jobs.
All of this worry has caused me to formulate a law - call it Kim’s Law:
The greater the worry about robots creating a jobless future, the more understaffed and insecure today's workplace becomes.
Think about it. You worry about a robot-driven jobless future, and then you go back to work at a place where less people are doing more work. You yourself are probably doing a job that should be being done by 2 or 3 people. Am I wrong?
If you think that you are unusual in working in an understaffed environment - or if you think that this is only a temporary situation - think again.
Understaffing is an endemic and permanent aspect of the knowledge economy and the digital age.
Everywhere you go, there will be too few people working to get the job done. Understaffing crosses every sector and every industry - from low productivity areas (such as retail and food services), to high productivity industries (technology, healthcare, and education).
The paradox is that at the same time we are worried that technology will create a world with too few jobs, we actually live in a world where there are too few jobs getting done.
How we make sense of the reasons behind our understaffing epidemic depend, I fear, on where we start ideologically.
Conservatives are likely to argue that understaffing is a supply problem. That taxes and regulations drive up the cost of labor, reducing the incentives for firms to hire.
Liberals are likely to argue that understaffing is a demand problem. That pro-employment and job security policies - such as support for unions and greater levels of public investment - will drive firms to both hire workers and pay them well for their work.
What I’d like to hear is a convincing story about the relationship between today’s technologies and today’s workplace realities of understaffing.
My sense is that the explanation for endemic understaffing would hinge around slow productivity growth since 1973, coupled with some variant of the cost disease. Increased healthcare costs, rising economic inequality, and the aging of the workforce would also probably play some role in the story.
Today’s understaffed workplaces are concentrated in relational industries. (Such as higher education). The future will be one of less humans doing less rote, automated, and transactional tasks. We should worry less about the loss of those future jobs, and worry more about all the jobs that are not getting done today.
Do you work in an environment where there are not enough people to get all the work done? Where a big worry is burnout, caused by too few people juggling too much work?
Has the supply of staff kept up with the increased demand for the services offered by your place of employment?
Are you working in a 24/7/365 technologically driven global internet-paced 21st century environment, but with a staffing structure that was originally designed for a slower metabolism of work?
Not only are you likely stretched thin by too much work being done by too little people, the jobs that people have are increasingly fragile, insecure, and contingent.
Are you worried about robots taking all the jobs, just as you spend your days doing three?
