University of Northampton: The Future of Work Report on Automation

This report, prepared for a Managing Operations and the Supply Chain module at the University of Northampton, investigates the future of work in the context of technological advancements and automation. The report begins by examining the concept of technological unemployment, tracing its...Read More

Running head: THE FUTURE OF WORK REPORT 1
Managing Operations and the Supply Chain
Student’s Name
Course
University
Professor
Date

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TALE OF CONTENTS
Cover page……………………………………………………………………………….1
Title page 3
Executive summary 3
introduction 4
Research methodology
Research findings 10
Conclusion 13
Recommendations 13
References………………………………………………………………15

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TITLE PAGE
This report aims to outline the future state of jobs in various organizations with technological
changes. It also aims to outline the impact of technological changes to the employment and gives
the solution for implementing technological changes without really rendering people jobless as a
result of introduction of the new technology.
Executive Summary
The purpose of the research report was to appreciate technological innovations that have been
taking place over the years and ensuring that people do not suffer unemployment as a result of
introduction of the new technology and also the report gives the solution to those technological
innovations that the new technology can be used if it can affect the employment of the people for
a short period of time. The research method that was applied by the researcher was a thorough
literature review in the area and was able to come up with the historical development of
technology over the centuries and the feedback received regarding the future state of jobs within
the organization as a result of automation was also noted which facilitated the findings. It was
found that most of the administrative jobs within the institution would not be automated and the
driver’s job would also not be automated. The researcher found out that some of the jobs like that
of the librarian, security guard, instructor had a high probability of been automated in the near
future as per the numerical table. The research recommended that technological innovation is

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good but should not result to full loss of employment to individuals but it should be used by the
individuals to make work easier
INTRODUCTION
The future of work Report
The future perception of the current jobs within the organization is usually determined by the
probability of automation of the current jobs within the organization without leading to the full
loss of employment among the existing staff. The research aims to encourage technological
innovation which has been receiving resistance from many people over the years. In my report I
am going to use the learning institutions and my case study is the university called Murang’a
University of Technology founded in 2016which was formerly Murang’a university college and
it was a constituent college for Jommo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. It
has an administrative staff of three hundred employees and has around 4000 students due to a
variety of courses offered. It is a public university established under the ministry of education
sector. The university offers various courses such as human resource management, engineering,
law, mathematics and computer science, Criminology, procurement, hospitality and tourism
management, Information Technology, Bachelor of commerce, Bachelor of education, Bachelor
of business information technology and many other courses in various levels starting from
certificate, diploma, degree and masters. Murang’a University of Technology main customers are
the students from various counties in Kenya who are the regular students placed by the Kenya
Universities and colleges placement board and the self-sponsored students who join the
university at their own expenses

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The researcher conducted a thorough literature review in the area which facilitated the findings
as shown below:
LITERATURE REVIEW
Concept of Technological Unemployment
According to Collins, J.C. and Collet-Klingenberg, L., 2017, technological unemployment is
where people lose their jobs as a result of introduction of the new technology which substitutes
their labor. Unemployment might be as a result of invention of machines that substitute the
human labor rendering them jobless. Technological unemployment has been evolving in phases
as follows:
Pre 16th Century
Varabyova, Y., Blankart, C.R., Greer, A.L. and Schreyögg, J., 2017 states that the concept of
technological unemployment existed since the invention of the wheel during the agrarian
revolution era. Raju, P.J., Mamatha, D.M. and Seshagiri, S.V., 2017, states that during the olden
days in Greece, majority of people were unemployed due to the implications of the labor-saving
technology which was use of slaves to accomplish free labor who were referred to as machines
of flesh and blood. Aristotle speculated in one of his political books that as a result of continuous
advancement of machines which were meant to make work easier, with passage of time there
would be no more need for human labor. Frank, I.U., Rong, D.U., Hira, B., Paul, I.I. and

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Tungom, C.E., 2017say that in 15th century there was a massive unemployment rate due to
population growth and changes in the availability of land for subsistence farming due to
increased settlement schemes and as a result the European authorities banned the new
technologies since it posed a threat for rendering people jobless and sometimes even people were
executed when they tried to introduce a new technology.
16th to 18th century
De Vries, H., Bekkers, V. and Tummers, L., 2016 outline that during this period the ruling elites
appreciated innovation to some extend which resulted in industrial revolution and the concern on
the influence of innovation on employment remained powerful in the 16th and the early 17th
century. A common scenario of rejection of the new technology during this time was when
Queen Elizabeth rejected the operation of the knitting machine which was invented by William
Lee claiming that it would have rendered many of the people who were knitting specialists
jobless (Acemoglu, D., Robinson, J., 2012). In 18th century workers had to fight for themselves
whenever there was an invention of the new machine that posed a risk of unemployment and
they no longer relied on the governmental support.
19th century
According to Llorente, A., Garcia-Herranz, M., Cebrian, M. and Moro, E., 2015, during this
period debates regarding technological unemployment increased especially in the Great Britain
where many smart thinkers who were economists dwelt. Some people supported technological
innovation but great political economists such as Ricardo, Malthus and Sismondi were against
the idea claiming that innovation could result to long term unemployment. Some like Jean -
Baptiste Say claimed that no one was to introduce a machine if he or she was going to reduce the
amount of product, this means that a machine was used to achieve more. In the late 1870 the

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issue of preventing innovations due to technological unemployment faded. This was because
innovation had started to increase prosperity for the sections of the British society.
20th century
According to Walsh, E., Holloway, J., McCoy, A. and Lydon, H., 2017, during the first two
decades of the 20century many people were employed hence the issue to do with massive
unemployment seldomly existed. Technological unemployment never attracted attention until the
mid to late 1920s. Hessel, P., Christiansen, S. and Skirbekk, V., 2017state that due to increased
technological advancements in USA, it was generally a more prosperous nation. They started to
experience urban unemployment from 1927.Rural American workers who had been suffering
unemployment improved agricultural technology which was the use of tractors which made their
life easier. The debates arose between 1930s concerning the influence of innovation on the high
rates of unemployment but this was curdled by the outbreak of the world war 11 from 1939-
1945.Another debate rose in 1960s by the great economists but this was shut down by the
outbreak of the Vietnam war (Fowler, L.A., Holt, S.L. and Joshi, D., 2016). This gave a chance
for the rise in technological inventions with minimal resistance which played a major role in
bringing about change in the society that existed during that time

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21st century
According to Galanis, N., Mayol, E., Alier, M. and García-Penal, F.J., 2016,the consensus that
technological innovation does not result to unemployment had a strong impact on the first decade
of the 21st century despite of been challenged by popular works such as Robotic Nation by
Marshall Brain and the books, the lights in the tunnel, Automation, accelerating technology and
the economy of the future by Martin Ford, they all discussed how technological innovation has
resulted to unemployment. The concern regarding technological unemployment increased in the
year 2013 when tea harvesting machines were to be used to pick tea in Kenya hence there was a
huge concern on the rate of unemployment among the locals hence the idea was not implemented
(Hessel, P., Christiansen, S. and Skirbekk, V., 2017). The study published in 2013 by oxford
Martin school, depicts that automation can affect both the skilled and the unskilled jobs and low
paid jobs and high paid jobs but low paid jobs are usually at a greater risk when it comes to
technological innovation.

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The stages of technological unemployment are as shown in the flow chart below
Pre 16th century use of slave technology to offer free labor 16th to 18th century
Industrial
revolution
19th century
Innovation resistance due to
unemployment
20th century
Technological innovation gain
popularity

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21st century continuous technology innovation Date
RESEARCH FINDINGS
This report has found that in the coming years most of the jobs will be automated rendering
many of the people jobless. The jobs range in; service delivery, clerical work, records keeping,
transportation and logistics management, tutoring and security. In murang’a University of
technology there are various jobs which at high risk of automation in the near future and this will
result to unemployment of the current employees. The library services have high chances of been
computerized where the books will be available online in the portal where the interested person
will be able to visit the shelf online and choose the book he or she wants and for that matter there
might not be a necessity for the librarian whose task is to issue those books to the students.

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Other jobs with their automation probability are shown in the table below
Rank Probability Label Soc
code
Occupation
1 0.0055 11-
3121
Human resources managers
2 0.0063 11-
3131
Training and development managers
3 0.0065 15-
1121
Computer systems analysts
4 0.0087 19-
1032
Educational, guidance, school and vocational
counselors
5 0.0095 25-
3999
Teachers and instructors, all other
6 0.01 11-
9033
Education administrators, post-secondary

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7 0.012 13-
1081
Logisticians
8 0.03 15-
1142
Network and computer system administrators
9 0.1 0 35-
1011
Chefs and head cooks
10 0.65 25-
4021
Librarians
11 0.67 53-
3021
Bus drivers, transit and intercity
12 0.78 43-
9011
Computer operators
13 0.82 49-
2098
Security and fire alarm system installers.
14 0.84 33-
9032
Security guards
15 0.97 1 43-
4071
File clerks

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CONCLUSION
According to Jensen, J.B., Kletzer, L.G., 2010, the future of work in the organization is
determined by the probability of automation of the available present jobs within the organization.
The impact will not be great because it shall affect 30% of the total jobs within the organization.
The automation will bring about some few changes in the normal organizational operations as
per the area.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Technology innovation should be enhanced with the impact on employees in question so as
facilitate minimum resistance in adoption of the new technology.

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References
Collins, J.C. and Collet-Klingenberg, L., 2017. Portable electronic assistive technology to
improve vocational task completion in young adults with an intellectual disability: A review of
the literature. Journal of Intellectual Disabilities, p.1744629516689336.
Varabyova, Y., Blankart, C.R., Greer, A.L. and Schreyögg, J., 2017. The determinants of
medical technology adoption in different decisional systems: a systematic literature
review. Health Policy, 121(3), pp.230-242.
Raju, P.J., Mamatha, D.M. and Seshagiri, S.V., 2017. Sericulture Industry: A Bonanza to
Strengthen Rural Population in India. In Handbook of Research on Science Education and
University Outreach as a Tool for Regional Development (pp. 267-288). IGI Global.
Frank, I.U., Rong, D.U., Hira, B., Paul, I.I. and Tungom, C.E., 2017. Technology Transfer in
Construction and Management: A Case for Nigeria Construction and Management
Sectors. Management Science and Engineering, 11(2), pp.28-34.
De Vries, H., Bekkers, V. and Tummers, L., 2016. Innovation in the public sector: A systematic
review and future research agenda. Public administration, 94(1), pp.146-166.
Llorente, A., Garcia-Herranz, M., Cebrian, M. and Moro, E., 2015. Social media fingerprints of
unemployment. PloS one, 10(5), p.e0128692.

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Walsh, E., Holloway, J., McCoy, A. and Lydon, H., 2017. Technology-aided interventions for
employment skills in adults with autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review. Review Journal
of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 4(1), pp.12-25.
Fowler, L.A., Holt, S.L. and Joshi, D., 2016. Mobile technology-based interventions for adult
users of alcohol: a systematic review of the literature. Addictive behaviors, 62, pp.25-34.
Hessel, P., Christiansen, S. and Skirbekk, V., 2017. Poor health as a potential risk factor for job
loss due to automation: the case of Norway. Occup Environ Med, pp.oemed-2017.
Galanis, N., Mayol, E., Alier, M. and García-Peñalvo, F.J., 2016. Supporting, evaluating and
validating informal learning. A social approach. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, pp.596-603.
Acemoglu, D., Robinson, J., 2012. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and
Poverty. Random House Digital, Inc
Jensen, J.B., Kletzer, L.G., 2010. Measuring tradable services and the task content of
offshorableservicesjobs. LaborintheNewEconomy.UniversityofChicago