While new technologies are giving rise to a “jobs gap” — or a mismatch between the jobs people want and the ones that are available — they are also affording new opportunities for workers, Goldman Sachs Group Inc said in a report.
The rise of automation, online tools and “big data” echoes industrial revolutions of the past, with occupations and businesses following a “natural evolution” as technology advances, the bank said.
While the transition can be painful, it can also be helped along by new policies seeking to better share the temporary discomfort of rapid tech-driven change, it said.
“The fact that technological change and innovation affect everybody across the political spectrum and the social spectrum means that there is a lot of focus on finding new approaches to bear the risk and to help people adapt,” Goldman Sachs Markets Institute director Sandra Lawson said in an internal interview last week to discuss the report.
It is not just that there is a lot of effort is going into solving the problem — technology is constantly evolving, which Goldman says can make adapting easier.
In the meantime, workers are already responding to the new employment landscape by taking on “adaptive occupations” that are better insulated from change.
Such occupations include nurses and Web developers, but can also extend to more traditional vocations, such as carpenters, plumbers and tailors.
“The fact that it’s a series of steps as opposed to one or two giant steps also makes it much easier to make adjustments to,” said Goldman Sachs Research head Steve Strongin, who coauthored the report.
The bank said the technology-driven shift from farming to manufacturing beginning in the late 1800s meant the loss of millions of agricultural jobs, but also “allowed the [US] to move into a new phase of economic growth.”
Still, managing the jobs gap can have benefits, Goldman said.
Since the risks are often too big for individuals to bear, institutions and governments should play a more active role in smoothing out the bumps created by a rapidly changing jobs market, it said.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
BARRIERS: Gudeng’s chairman said it was unlikely that the US could replicate Taiwan’s science parks in Arizona, given its strict immigration policies and cultural differences Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登), which supplies wafer pods to the world’s major semiconductor firms, yesterday said it is in no rush to set up production in the US due to high costs. The company supplies its customers through a warehouse in Arizona jointly operated by TSS Holdings Ltd (德鑫控股), a joint holding of Gudeng and 17 Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including specialty plastic compounds producer Nytex Composites Co (耐特) and automated material handling system supplier Symtek Automation Asia Co (迅得). While the company has long been exploring the feasibility of setting up production in the US to address
RSS