To start this discussion off, I encourage readers to critically think about the following questions: 1) What is productivity? What happens when it goes up/goes down?
2) More importantly what other factors influence productivity?
Productivity is typically based on a input/output equation, by evaluating the amount of labour power and investment put towards creating an output. Therefore, the lower the labour and investment, the higher the rate of productivity. In the reading, Innovative Enterprise and the Theory of the Firm, William Lazonick argues that in order "to make society materially better off, [we need] productivity to increase" (Lazonick, 2016, p. 77). However, it is important to understand that productivity growth can only contribute to economic well-being if the productivity gains are distributed equally among society's members.
In an external article called, Humans vs. Machines: The Impact of Fatigue on Productivity, it compares and contrasts humans and machines, in terms of productivity. Humans and machines do not respond to task hours and output in the same manner. For this reason, "decrements in output occur after 50-55 ours for humans versus 80 hours for machines"(Fusion Health, 2017). Once fatigue sets in, productivity decreases even further to roughly 40 hours. Therefore, this strongly correlates to how machines are slowly replacing human's jobs, as they are considered more reliable and unaffected by human fatigue.
Share your thoughts on technology takeover and its influence upon human jobs.
References
Fusion Health .
(2017). Humans vs. Machines: The Impact of Fatigue on Productivity.
Retrieved from Fusion Health :
https://www.fusionhealth.com/health-and-safety/fatigue-and-productivity/
Lazonick, W.
(2016). Innovative Enterprise and the Theory of the Firm . The Political
Quarterly, 77-97.
Hi Rachel,
ReplyDeleteGreat article. With the use of machines becoming popular among companies, I think another important factor that affects productivity is the competitiveness of today's job market. With so many new graduates and young adults searching for jobs, positions become limited and applicant are essentially forced to be productive and work hard (especially in the tech industry) or else someone else who is willing to work hard and put in the hours will replace you.