As the machine economy rises, millions of UK workers worry that their jobs could be caught in the crossfire. This startling conclusion is reached in a new report commissioned by the UK Government.
Yvette Cooper, a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom and a member of that country’s Labor Party, has launched a commission focusing on technology’s workplace influence. The Fabian Society and the trade union Community are intended recipients of the commission’s findings.
Earlier this year, the UK-based online retailer Shop Direct warned that 2,000 jobs could be lost as the company takes up a new distribution facility. The Bank of England has noted that UK firms could trim as many as 15 million jobs as automation increasingly takes over.
Such data likely helps to explain why, in a recent poll of over 1,000 people across the UK, over 37% fear that their job will worsen over the coming decade. Generalized to the UK’s whole working population, this figure suggests that about 10 million UK workers are feeling such dread.
The survey’s findings similarly imply that over six million UK staffers specifically fear machines as threatening their jobs. Cooper insisted, as The Guardian quotes: “It’s vital that action is taken now to make sure technology creates new better jobs and that all workers benefit from new technology.”
