Working at Amazon

kilvil

might be a start if the jobs currently unfilled are filled. also if the Gov did not subsidise employers with in work benefits  wages would also have to rise.

https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/number-of-uk-job-vacancies-at-a-record-high/

weaviemx5

Until recently low unemployment has not been having the desired impact on wages because the supply of labour has not been constrained.

Now that EU workers are beginning to voluntarily stay away, we are starting to see wages pick up.

If Amazon introduces more automation and reduces box pickers, there will be other firms and jobs for which automation is less viable. And with the supply of labour reduced, any redundant Amazon workers will face less competition for those jobs.

I really don't get this focus on preserving low paid jobs. We send 50% of young people to university because we want the UK to be a high skill, high wage economy. We should want firms to invest in automation and increasing productivity. Why are you so resistant to this idea?

Bl4ckGryph0n

I’m not resistant to development, especially not in a field that I work in.  The issue is that there are many more people who would be classed as low-skilled than there will be jobs if companies like Amazon employ more automation.  Whilst some people will see it as an opportunity to retrain, many won’t so will be left without work.  Yes, that’s their choice to some degree but if we don’t get it right from start with good education and encouragement to progress, people will always look for lower skill work.

As someone who’s shared the same article linking an increase in immigration with a decrease in wages for the lowest paid british workers (apparently through care for their situation), it just seems odd that you’re now encouraging the replacement of those same low skilled British workers with more automation? Wouldn’t it be better for Governments to push more investment in their training/skills to improve their positions?

weaviemx5

We already have 50% of young people going to university. What we need is for industry to invest in automation and productivity to create the demand for these skills, and for the suppliers of automation to invest in their workforce on the back of that.

We will never eliminate all low skilled jobs. And for the workers that remain, there will be less competition for jobs. There is no reason that automation has to increase unemployment.

McDonald's have been rolling out automation in the form of kiosks to order. Have they made mass redundancies on the back of that? Or have they used this as an opportunity to invest in table service and the like?

Bl4ckGryph0n

Table service at McDonalds. Yup I’ve seen it, it still makes me smile.

Anyway, I totally agree. I never got this lefty obsession in keeping people down and dependent. To me it is such a cruel kind of politics. I’d like to see everyone improve.

kilvil

Keeping people down? It’s nothing like that, just reality.  Many people have no desire or inclination to do anything more than jobs like the Amazon “box filling” so simply assuming that they will wish to retrain for a completely new career may be naive.

weaviemx5

Absolutely agreed, that was not my point...But let's not artificially stifle progress, or subsidise a lifestyle choice. Everyone has a choice.

kilvil

then when those jobs are automated they have the choice to either retrain or be unemployed, there choice.

weaviemx5

I funnied that because I assumed it was a joke?

weaviemx5

why a joke? its true.