Monica Eaton’s Monthly Column for Newsmax Finance
Anxieties about automation and the replacement of labor are nothing new. But, as Chargebacks911® Co-Founder and COO Monica Eaton explains in her latest feature for Newsmax, innovative tools like AI are changing how those concerns manifest.
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As technology advances, it makes certain tasks unnecessary for humans to perform. That seems simple…but it gets complicated when you must find roles for those workers to fill. “Technological unemployment,” as it’s called, is a huge threat to the economy at large. But, as Monica points out, there could be a market-based solution that will help absorb the millions of workers whose jobs are in danger from automation.
To demonstrate, Monica points to Amazon’s "Upskilling 2025" program. As she says, “This initiative seeks to retrain 100,000 current employees with the company by the year 2025. And, despite the hefty $700 million cost, the program will likely pay off very quickly.”
We’re on the cusp of what some describe as a “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” Retraining workers on a mass scale to have the skills necessary in this new environment won’t be easy. However, it’s work that must be done if our economy is going to remain competitive and survive.
“As we begin the retraining process, the natural starting point is with roles most susceptible to replacement. We already mentioned bookkeeping and accounting, but data entry, tax prep, retail sales…these are a few of the jobs that will be first on the technological chopping block. Thus, we should start the reskilling process with workers in these professions.”
