Sir, – Minister for Finance Michael Noonan’s gratuitous comments on the unemployed are a sad indication of how little he and governments all over the world appreciate the transformation of work in the 21st century and the disastrous employment situation facing the human race as administrations persistently refuse to adapt to automation and robotics (“Noonan’s ‘allergic to work’ comment criticised”, May 7th).
Work is in serious decline; machines can and are doing practically every task better, quicker and cheaper than human labour ever could and this includes ever more skilled and intellectual tasks.
The development of automation and robotics is a wonderful success of human invention and innovation. It is not a new trend; it has advanced since humans first used flint as a rudimentary cutting tool and galloped through the industrial revolution.
Computerisation in the last 20 years has taken it to entirely new levels of sophistication and ability that have far surpassed the stage when technology generated as many or even more jobs that it eliminated.
Unless we change our whole thinking and ideology on work, employment will collapse leaving enormous sections of populations all over the world on the scrapheap of joblessness and dependence.
Politicians and economists scoff at the idea of work being greatly diminished; they cling to the dangerous illusion that work is eternal. That might have been true until the end of the 20th century but not any more. Employment is needed much more to distribute wealth than create it in this unprecedented technological age.
More employment must be generated from a diminishing pool of work; with substantially reduced working hours, longer holidays and earlier retirement, an increasing number of jobs will be generated by public service as private industry continually improves production with less labour.
This is not a task to be achieved by single countries acting alone but must be implemented by substantial economic blocs or preferably on a worldwide basis. This will not be easy but must be accomplished otherwise joblessness, which deprives people of dignity, security and hope, will destroy the very framework of coherent society. – Yours, etc,
PADRAIC NEARY,
Tubbercurry,
Co Sligo.