Technological Unemployment in Toyota Company: A Scenario Development

This paper discusses the concept of technological unemployment in Toyota Company and its impact on the workforce. It describes the company's background, products, and services. It also presents a literature review on technological unemployment and a scenario development based on Frey and Osborne's findings. The paper concludes with recommendations for the company.

Running Head: Toyota Company 1
Management and Operation and Supply Chain

Operation Management 2
Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Description of the Chosen Company...............................................................................................3
Literature Review............................................................................................................................4
Findings of technological unemployment.......................................................................................6
Scenario Development.....................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................11

Toyota Company 3
Introduction
The main aim of this paper is to reveal the range of the concepts and techniques available to
operations managers for the purpose of enabling the effective business decision making. Toyota
Company will be chosen to elaborate the idea of Technological Unemployment from its
beginning until the present day. At last, Frey and Osborne’s findings will be reviewed in an
efficient manner.
Description of the Chosen Company
Toyota Motor Corporation was founded in 1937 by the Toyoda family and the Headquarter of
the company is situated in Japan (Chart, Industry and Industry, 2010). The company has been
with its values to produce the reliable car for the clientele and the major focus of the company is
on the sustainable development of the society that is why company pertain innovative and super
quality products and services.
The company is provided a number of products and services to the company with quality. The
products of the company are Toyota Prius, Tacoma, Carolla, Yaris, Camry Hybrid, FJ Cruiser,
Camry, Sienna, Masterace and many more. Along with that the Toyota Company is engaged in a
huge diversity of businesses involving Automobiles such as vehicles, car air-conditioning
compressors, engines and car electronics, textile machinery and material management
equipment.
The main customers of the company are those who are fond of buying a new car because the
company is more advanced to adopt the latest technology. Along with that, the company
provides products to the customers from low range to high range. The company provides the

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direct information regarding the products and services to the customers in which direct
explanations are given by dealer staff and telephones consultation through the customer
assistance centre.
Literature Review
According to Breslow, Pritchard, DeBoer, Stump, Ho and Seaton, (2013), the technological
unemployment occurs when an individual lose their jobs because of the technological
advancements. It has been found that the switch of manpower with technology results in
technological unemployment. The technology has become more advanced in big data, machine
learning and robotics which have started to have an unenthusiastic control on active employment
opportunities for human beings. It has been found that the various studies have elaborated a
troublesome deny in low and medium income service ensuing from the substitute of human
labour force with machines. There is a determining study is conducted by Frey and Osborne in
the year 2013. It has been predicted through this study that around 47% of the 702 investigated
occupations in the United States that are facing a huge threat of diminished employment rate in
next coming 10-25 years due to the outcome of computerization (Cang, 2017).
It has been asserted by Frey, C.B. and Osborne, (2017), that the enlargement in high skills
employment can be defined by the decreasing price of finding out routine goals by means of
computers, which balances more theoretical and original services. In the context of Toyota
Company, it can be demonstrated that the company is more advanced in technology and the
company is used many advanced techniques to manufacture the car (Campbell-Kelly, 2009).
However, company has a number of employees but due to increment in technology
advancements, the employee of the company can face issue because the technology by being

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advanced can replace the human with machines or robots. It has been estimated that around 47%
of current jobs could be replaced by technology. It has been found that nearly one in ten jobs at
high risk of automation, which would bring the seismic change in the economy. While there is a
number of people disputed that there is proof of the rise of job-stealing robots, one does not have
to appear further in comparison of the rise of Amazon and the reduce of traditional retail to see
the potential for technology-related job loss. The ambiguities regarding rapid advances in
technology add to the concern (Brown et. al., 2010). There is an instance of 4.1 million
Americans that employed in driving occupations who could be rapidly displaced by
developments in autonomous vehicles. There is no matter of these changes if they develop over
time, communities have the scope to adapt to the latest economy; but in case of happening
rapidly, and a huge range of workers can get displaced without the skills require succeeding for
other available jobs.
It is required for the Toyota change management to focus on the future plan because technology
has changed rapidly. It has been stated by Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2011) that rapidity of the
technological modernization is amplifying, with more appropriate software technologies unruly
labour markets. What is remarkable about the illustrations in their book is that computerisation is
no longer restricted to custom industrialized jobs. The self-directed driverless cars, made by
Google, offer one instance of how labour-intensive tasks in transport and logistics may quickly
be computerized. Due to amendment in the technology, the change management of Toyota
Company will predict that the function of making cars will be automated in coming next 10 to 20
years.
It has been analyzed that technology permits for outputs and quality of goods and services to rise
up, whilst prices to go down. As per the Robotics Industries Association, the operating cost has

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been found in the context of robot is $0.75/hour; on the other hand, the same duties of human
performance could cost between $15-20 hour to reimburse. The robots are able to perform for the
company 24*7 and the major advantages of this are that they do not need health insurance
coverage or a pension. It expresses the demand of robots in the Toyota Company in coming
years as robots will help in reducing the cost of man power (NC, 2016). It has been found that
the robot will certainly help in reducing the operation cost and increase the power of producing
products for the company but it is required for the company to have the skilled employees who
can handle them in an efficient manner.
In the regards of Toyota company, it has been found that this company is involving humans in
already automated processes and it is not because they are effective than machines but because
they need to know firsthand what the machines are doing so they can find out the process to
ahead develop them. These all are the component of huge strategy by the president of the
organization, Akio, Toyoda, to stop the growth pedal and refocus on the quality by cutting the
costs (Clifford and Clifton, 2012).
Findings of technological unemployment
There is another concern whether technology is contributing to enhanced inequality because of
the labour market polarization, with development in the high and low paid ends of the workforce
but slowing in the middle (Bloss, 2011). It has been found that the first wave of automation in
factories and the rise in personal computers led to reduced in routine middle-class employment.
According to the Frey’s research, it has been identified that a set of skills within jobs that serve
as issues to the computerization of tasks. These entail unique benefits in perception and
manipulation like as the capabilities of fingers to influence and bring together very small objects

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and human benefits in doing manual work in confined worked spaces. They also define the
components of human intelligence by including the creative ability to develop innovative and
new ideas solutions- a signature feature of various fields like engineering, business, education,
and healthcare (Davis, 2018).
Scenario Development
Toyota Company is providing the latest car with latest technology all over the world and people
prefer to buy their products due to reasonable and effective rates. The vulnerability of jobs in
Singapore is to computerization and mechanization over the upcoming ten to fifteen years by
drawing on the initial data in Frey and Osborne. Toyota Company is good for innovation and
introduces hybrid and electric car to people of the world. In specific, it has been found that
approx 25% of employment in Singapore is high risk due to technology change. The employees
of the company are very supportive in making changes within the operation but due to rapid
changes in the automobiles industry due to technology adaption can bring the concern of
unemployment. The employees of the company would be unable to re-employ if they lose their
jobs. Toyota Motor Corporation has run a Partner Robot programme which helps the company in
making robots that give clarification to some of life hardships. Along with that the company has
introduced Kiroba robot that has different features of human face recognition. He offered
company to astronaut Kochi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on an
operation which launched from the Tanegashima Space Centre in Japan, in August 2013
(Toyota, 2014).
The vehicle manufacture scheme of Toyota Motor Corporation is a way of ‘production things’
that is considered to as a “lean manufacturing system” or a “Just in Time (JIT) system” and has

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come to be well known and studied globally. The main aim behind making this production
control system by Toyota was manufacturing the vehicles well-organized by customers in the
rapid and most effective way for the purpose of delivering the vehicles as soon as possible
(Hallam, Muesel and Flannery, 2010). The Toyota Production System was documented based on
two notions: The first is called "jidoka" (which can be insecurely interpreted as "mechanization
with a human touch") which refers that when a problem happen, the equipments discontinue
instantaneously, evading defective products from being produced; another concept is "Just-in-
Time," in which each procedure produces only what is necessary by the next process in a
incessant flow (Kaneko and Nojiri, 2008). With the help of this viewpoints of Jidoka and Just in
Time, the production system of Toyota Company can effectively and hastily develop vehicles of
sound quality, which entirely satisfy customer requirements.
In case of breaking down the high-risk category by age groups in Toyota Company, it has been
found that almost half of the workers of the company around 48% are aged years and over. It has
been found in a recent study by Wanberg et al. (2016) that after losing their jobs, older adults
would be liable to remain unemployed around 11 weeks longer than those aged between 20 and
29. The similar things are observed by Ministry of Manpower (MOM) in Singapore. In their
unemployment and re-entry into employment 2016 report, they found that the rate of re-entry
into employment within 12 months of unemployment is found as lowest for workers whose age
is 50 and above, standing only around 60% (Fuei, 2017). This comparison is around 77% for
those aged below 30 years old and 735 for those whose age between 30 and 39. According to
Frey and Osborne’s findings, there is the huge importance of communal and policy implications
for Singapore that proposes a huge amount of these workers who are at high level of risk of

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being evacuated by automation are also considered as the threat of being unemployed (Kim, Kim
and Lee, 2017).
The workers in the automobile industry are permanently displaced from their jobs face a
comprehensive time wherein they would not face any wages. Supremely, the programs of wage
replacement permit workers to accomplish full-time training which would be helpful in
reemployment at a good wage (Stenner, 2018). Along with that work-based learning,
reemployment services community economic development, early warning and universal
dislocated worker benefit would be helpful in increasing the demand for workers in Toyota
Company.
Conclusion
It has been concluded that the technological unemployment occurs when the individuals lose
their jobs because of the technological advancements. The Toyota Company has been chosen to
describe the concept of the technological unemployment. It has been found that the technological
unemployment in comparison from its inception is high in present day. It will be assumed that
next 20 to 50 years, job will be finished as companies will entirely dependent on the robotic
machines. The scenario has been developed by taking Toyota Company in which the discussion
has been made by applying Frey and Osborne’s findings. The finding has been suggested that the
manpower of the Toyota Company will be affected due to technological unemployment because
the process of resource allocation would be ready for the company. It can be concluded that from
the perception of the abilities of the technological, the enormous reminder of service in
production occupations is therefore expected to vanish over the coming decades.

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It is recommended to the company that they should focus on technological change as it has been
found that the technological unemployment is being the reason of decreasing employment rate
but helpful in increasing the productivity of the business which enhance the revenues of the
company. Toyota Company needs to focus on employment rate as well because large amount of
employees are relied on the company for the job.

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