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Stories Tagged as

Automation

Longshoremen strike for better pay and to stop automation

by Stephanie Hughes
Oct 2, 2024
About a hundred striking longshoremen marched by one of the terminals in the port of Baltimore. Some carried signs that say “machines don’t feed families.”
Longshoremen on strike at the Port of Baltimore on Oct. 1, 2024.
Stephanie Hughes for Marketplace
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Calling customer service? Good luck speaking to a human.

by Kai Ryssdal and Sofia Terenzio
Sep 23, 2024
To reach a human representative, some companies have started charging a premium. Those unwilling to pay will have to stick with the bots.
One reason companies have replaced human customer service representatives? Bots are cheaper, says Emily Stewart at Business Insider.
Shaun Heasley/Getty Images
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"Harlan County, USA"

Why coal mining jobs have disappeared

by David Brancaccio
Aug 19, 2024
Automation in coal mining has increased productivity and reduced employment in the industry.
Automation in coal mining has increased productivity and reduced employment in the industry.
Justin Merriman/Getty Images
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AI could automate over half of banking jobs

by Stephanie Hughes
Jun 21, 2024
A new report by Citi looks at the financial tasks that will be delegated to AI — and the new ones that will crop up.
One thing AI won’t be as good at as human bankers? Dealing with human customers.
Fly View Productions/Getty Images
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Workers used to earn about two-thirds of the income their labor generates. Now, it's just over half.

by Nancy Marshall-Genzer
Apr 12, 2024
The stat, called labor share of national income, is being squeezed by globalization, declining union membership and automation.
Even though workers' slice of the pie is shrinking, the U.S. economy is growing, so they're getting a smaller slice of a bigger pie.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
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Thanks to AI, more U.S. workers worry that technology threatens their jobs

by Kimberly Adams
Sep 11, 2023
In the past, technology has displaced jobs but the economy has continually created new ones. Some experts see greater losses this time.
Many college-educated workers are anxious about the potential for their jobs to be automated, a new Gallup poll finds.
Guillaume/Getty Images
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AI lessons from the telephone operators of the 1920s

by Kai Ryssdal and Livi Burdette
Aug 17, 2023
In the early 20th century, thousands of young women worked as telephone switchboard operators. Automation changed that.
If you were a working woman in the early 20th century, there's a good chance you were a telephone operator — until mechanical switching took over the job.
-/AFP via Getty Images
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Artificial intelligence will impact workplaces and cost some workers their jobs

by Samantha Fields
Jul 27, 2023
A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute says some will lose their jobs and low-wage workers are the most likely to be hit.
Lower-paid jobs, like those in food service, are more likely to disappear because of AI and automation. Some already have.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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Hotels and restaurants have had trouble hiring, so they innovated

by Stephanie Hughes
Jul 17, 2023
That’s meant automating some tasks once done by humans and thinking carefully about the humans they do hire.
After two summers of worker shortages on Cape Cod, some restaurant and hotel owners have become more efficient, "enabling them to operate with a smaller staff,” the Beige Book says.
Tim Graham/Getty Images
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Are we expected to tip robots now?

by Kai Ryssdal and Livi Burdette
Jun 1, 2023
Replacing face-to-face service interactions with automation could change American tipping culture.
A loss of face-to-face tipped interactions, often replaced by self-checkout or automated transactions, could change our culture of tipping.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
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