Technology

Technological change and the future of love - FutureworkNZ

Guest Author • Aug 12, 2019 •

• dating,
• online,
• relationships,
• Technology

John MacCormick Online matchmaking has radically changed the way people search for love. Digital marketplaces for romance offer more choice, fewer constraints, and potentially less risk than “traditional” ways of finding prospective mates. How much has this changed the nature and quality of people’s romantic relationships? Jack MacCormick In a similar way, digital labour market platforms change matchmaking for … Read More

Is tech change really accelerating? - FutureworkNZ

Guest Author • Aug 08, 2019 •

• Employment,
• firms,
• labour market,
• Technology

Tim Maddock    Accelerating or decelerating? Just about all the media commentary about the future of work says that tech change is accelerating, like this example, originally published in the Listener. But what does the data tell us? It’s now six years since Frey & Osborne’s claim that 47% of total … Read More

Can robots help fund nicer and more attractive places to live? - FutureworkNZ

Guest Author • Aug 01, 2019 •

• Automation,
• jobs,
• robots,
• Technology

Judy Kavanagh Robots are going to take our jobs, right?  Well, maybe. The available evidence provides conflicting results: In the US, one new robot reduces employment by 5.6 workers and local wages by about 0.5% according to estimates in Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo’s much cited 2017 paper. In Germany, more robots decrease employment in the manufacturing sector but increase … Read More

Why do the Danes like tech? - FutureworkNZ

Guest Author • Jul 31, 2019 •

• Automation,
• Technology

Judy Kavanagh    Denmark is a lot like us. A small country and with an open economy and lots of fiords and sounds. (Dave tells me fiords and sounds are different – a sound is formed by the sea flooding a river valley whereas a fiord is where a valley has been carved out by a … Read More

Moon landings, automation fears and commissions of inquiry - FutureworkNZ

Dave Heatley • Jul 27, 2019 •

• JFK,
• Moon Landing,
• National Commission on Technology Automation and Economic Progress,
• technological progress

The 50th anniversary of the moon landings got me thinking about 1960s tech and work. Not that I was working back then – I watched a scratchy B&W TV broadcast at primary school. Source: Wikimedia Commons John F. Kennedy’s 1962 speech is remembered for the line: “We choose to go to the Moon in … Read More

The perils of straight-line forecasting - FutureworkNZ

Dave Heatley • Jul 25, 2019 •

• forecasting,
• jobs,
• labour market

Skills scarcity is great. At least when it’s your skills in demand. Scarce skills command a wage premium and those with them are much less likely to face unemployment. (Employers are much less fond of skills scarcity, but they do benefit from skills gluts.) But, when considering training or retraining, how do you pick skills and occupations that will be … Read More

Who should invest their money between workers’ ears? - FutureworkNZ

Guest Author • Jul 22, 2019 •

• Employment,
• work training

John MacCormick   Training is an investment in “embodied human capital” – assets stored in workers’ heads. With indentured servitude now deservedly out of fashion, workers can choose to walk out the door without the boss separating those assets from their shoulders. Why would employers invest in assets that can quit? In a simplified labour market model, employers have no reason … Read More

Remembering Apollo 11 - Out of Space

Duncan Steel • Jul 18, 2019

There are lots of ways of remembering the Apollo project, which resulted in a dozen men walking on the lunar surface (and some of them even driving around in their lunar buggies). Here I show a few of them, dear to my heart.  You may not have heard, but this weekend marks the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, when we … Read More

Blocking agri-tech doesn’t mean we can block its undesired effects - FutureworkNZ

Dave Heatley • Jul 18, 2019 •

• agri-tech,
• gene editing,
• Impossible Burger,
• plant-based meat

New tech. A traditional local industry. Who wouldn’t we be concerned about potential negative effects? So why don’t we just stop it at the border? The problem is that price effects can undermine the effect and the intent of banning tech at the border. In this post I explore three ways that could happen with new agri-tech and what lessons … Read More

What to do when forecasts diverge? - FutureworkNZ

Dave Heatley • Jul 17, 2019 •

• Automation,
• forecasting,
• jobs

The nice thing about forecasts is that you have so many to choose from.1 For the weather, you can choose between MetService, metvuw, yr, the Weather Channel and many others. It’s best if they agree to guarantee a perfect day in the mountains… … Read More