Technology, Competition, and Employment

Abstract

Technology makes possible the production of existing goods and services with fewer input resources and the creation of new products and services fulfilling hitherto unmet or unrealized social needs. The accomplishment of both of these functions is difficult to estimate quantitatively, and it is thus hard to say anything definitive about the effects of technology on employment or on the quality of jobs, especially since technology is only one among several factors that influence this. Forecasts of future technological trends and their social impacts tend to overestimate changes in the short term, and underestimate them in the long term. This article stresses the key role of social and organizational learning, and the necessity for a higher level of cooperation among labor, management, and government in the selection and introduction of new technology and its accommodation to society. In the future the factory and the office must become more like a research laboratory or an advanced school where cooperative learning is the norm.