The best word to complete this sentence “_______ the decline...
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Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed
The battle between men and machines goes back centuries. Are they taking our jobs? Or are they easing our workload? A study by economists at the consultancy Deloitte seeks to shed new light on the relationship between jobs and the
rise of technology by searching through census data for England and Wales going
back to 1871.
Their conclusion is that, rather than destroying jobs, technology has been
a “great job-creating machine”. Findings by Deloitte such as rise in bar staff since
the 1950s or a surge in the number of hairdressers this century suggest to the
authors that technology has increased spending power, therefore creating new demand and new jobs. Their study argues that the debate has been twisted towards
the job-destroying effects of technological change, which are more easily observed
than its creative aspects.
Going back over past figures paints a more balanced picture, say authors
Ian Stewart and Alex Cole. “The dominant trend is of contracting employment in
agriculture and manufacturing being more than balanced by rapid growth in the
caring, creative, technology and business services sectors,” they write. “Machines
will take on more repetitive and laborious tasks, but they seem no closer to eliminating the need for human labor than at any time in the last 150 years.”
According to the study, hard, dangerous and dull jobs have declined. In
some sectors, technology has quite clearly cost jobs, but they question whether
they are really jobs we would want to hold on to. Technology directly substitutes
human muscle power and, in so doing, raises productivity and shrinks employment.
“In the UK the first sector to feel this effect on any scale was agriculture,” says the
study.
The study also found out that ‘caring’ jobs have increased. The report cites
a “profound shift”, with labor switching from its historic role, as a source of raw
power, to the care, education and provision of services to others. Technological progress has cut the prices of essentials, such as food, and the price
of bigger household items such as TVs and kitchen appliances, notes Stewart. That
leaves more money to spend on leisure, and creates new demand and new jobs,
which may explain the big rise in bar staff, he adds. “_______ the decline in the
traditional pub, census data shows that the number of people employed in bars
rose fourfold between 1951 and 2011,” the report says.
The Deloitte economists believe that rising incomes have allowed consumers to spend more on personal services, such as grooming. That in turn has driven
employment of hairdressers. So, while in 1871 there was one hairdresser or barber
for every 1,793 citizens of England and Wales; today there is one for every 287
people.
(Adapted from: https://goo.gl/7V5vuw. Access: 02/02/2018.)
The best word to complete this sentence “_______ the decline in the traditional
pub…” (paragraph 6) is