Here’s another for the offshore outsourcing glossary: offpeopling
Consultant Richard Samson argues that the replacement of human workers by technology is a bigger deal than the much-publicized offshore trend. And he’s turned to the increasingly popular Web log, or blog, medium to share his views. Dubbed “Automatic Abundance,” the blog is slated to provide alerts on topics such as tasks that are shifting to machines, income opportunities that are relatively safe from automation and emerging business ideas consistent with the trend. “It’s happening every day, right before our eyes, but few notice,” Samson said in a statement Friday. “A child born today will find very few of today’s jobs in the want ads when graduating from college. Most work tasks done now by people will be done by smart technology within 20 or 30 years.”
And Gartner analyst Frances Karamouzis puts it like this:
[M]ore IT jobs in the West are at risk of disappearing because of automation and productivity gains than from offshore outsourcing. The effect of those factors on IT job displacement will, by 2015, be six times greater than the impact of offshoring …
No, I didn’t call it “offpeopling,” but here’s my take on job “stealing” machines.