September 23, 2013 at 8:51 am
OCTom (9/19/2013)
I don't know about this. Although I can offer only my perspective, from what I have seen in my 30 years in I.T., there may be a net decrease in jobs from automation. If not, why would a company ever automate? One reason they do is to save money on salaries and beneifts. I have been involved in automation projects that caused thousands of people their jobs.I would like to see statistics that show an increase in jobs from automation. A quote from a 1911 source does not give me any confidence.
That statistics and numbers are for people working in IT, not companies overall. Automation doesn't reduce IT workers, but it does reduce other, non-IT, workers in some (perhaps many or most) cases.
September 23, 2013 at 9:18 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (9/23/2013)
OCTom (9/19/2013)
I don't know about this. Although I can offer only my perspective, from what I have seen in my 30 years in I.T., there may be a net decrease in jobs from automation. If not, why would a company ever automate? One reason they do is to save money on salaries and beneifts. I have been involved in automation projects that caused thousands of people their jobs.I would like to see statistics that show an increase in jobs from automation. A quote from a 1911 source does not give me any confidence.
That statistics and numbers are for people working in IT, not companies overall. Automation doesn't reduce IT workers, but it does reduce other, non-IT, workers in some (perhaps many or most) cases.
Let's assume a specific organization has several captitalizable IT projects in the pipeline, but their IT staff can't devote the required number of hours per week to start the projects because they are preoccupied with non-capitalizable administrative tasks. In this case, more automation will simply result in the same staff shifting from non-cap to more productive capitalizable work.
On the other hand, if the organization is struggling financially and believes that reducing operational overhead has a higher priority than revenue expansion (ex: desktop PC manufactorers), then automation will result in layoffs.
However, looking at how automation impacts the IT industry as a whole, and I think the net employment would remain the same.
I do expect that in the future there will be fewer administrators but more business intelligence professionals. You've got to be proactive and ride the automation wave like a surfer, and not passively let the automation wave crash over you.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
September 23, 2013 at 11:06 am
Your assumptions ignore the fact that often IT groups find new opportunities, and can do so when more time is available. As IT operations improve, companies often invest more in that area. That's what we've seen across the last 40 years, and while it might not continue, it has to date.
Any particular IT group/department/company could see layoffs. Overall as an industry, that's not what we've seen.
September 23, 2013 at 12:28 pm
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (9/23/2013)
Your assumptions ignore the fact that often IT groups find new opportunities, and can do so when more time is available. As IT operations improve, companies often invest more in that area. That's what we've seen across the last 40 years, and while it might not continue, it has to date.Any particular IT group/department/company could see layoffs. Overall as an industry, that's not what we've seen.
That's what I meant; automation may mean the end for some departments or job descriptions, but the net effect for the industry as whole is no loss of jobs. No doubt there are a lot of people stuck in boring repetitive jobs who shrug when they learn their postion is being eliminated. They move on to some new and more rewarding role in IT, an opportunity that would not have become available had it not been for automation.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
October 17, 2013 at 9:54 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (9/23/2013)
Your assumptions ignore the fact that often IT groups find new opportunities, and can do so when more time is available. As IT operations improve, companies often invest more in that area. That's what we've seen across the last 40 years, and while it might not continue, it has to date.Any particular IT group/department/company could see layoffs. Overall as an industry, that's not what we've seen.
Steve, This is a excellent word. Years back we automated much of the Library work for a Library Consortium in the PNW. The idea was to automate what we could as to free up the librarians time to do the real work of a librarian. The motto use to be "Making computers do the paperwork, so Librarians can teach people to read." We always had more work as did those libraries who used our products.
The automation of a task introduces further automation opportunities. Our work will never end.
M...
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
October 17, 2013 at 10:17 am
Even if automation pushes an IT professional out of one job, it will open the door for another job, wether within the same organization or another. I'm sure there are a lot of here who are thankful were not still sorting cards and pecking out COBOL one line at a time anymore. In the interim we've outgrown a handful of jobs and were blessed with new challenges and new rewards with each. At least those of us who innovated did.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
October 17, 2013 at 1:54 pm
My first job as a SQL Server DBA was for a company that had U.S. government contracts. We worked in a secure facility, so the main vendor couldn't access anything. We were one of only a few clients where the vendor didn't have full control over the databases and server. So for everyone else, adminstration was 'automatic'. They had a program in their app that controlled the backups and other maintenance work. When an update needed done, it got pushed automatically to the database. Except for us. I did all the admin work and they had to send me any new code, then I tested it and applied it if it passed testing. At first they griped about this, until I reported some issues that they didn't catch. At first they ignored me until other clients where it was automatically pushed and installed began complaining. Then it became an 'unwritten' policy to send me the updates/changes before pushing them out to other clients. I would do my testing and provide them feedback. Once everything looked good, then they pushed it to their other clients. It was nice for them because they got real-world testing before pushing it out automatically. It was nice for me as I knew the code I finally installed in production actually worked and I got the 'pat on the back feeling' that I was able to help the vendor and keep other companies from having issues with the upgrades.
-SQLBill
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