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Cloud To Create 14 Million Jobs? Not So Much
jfruh writes "Did you hear about the study from Microsoft and IDC (PDF), declaring that adoption of cloud technologies would create 14 million jobs? Well, don't believe the hype. The study posts that, once small and medium business can use cloud products to just eliminate their IT department, they'll use those savings to hire people for their core business. It's a dubious proposition, and one that wouldn't be good news for IT workers even if things do play out that way."
The revolution of automotive transport put a lot of horse dung collectors out of work too. Society should advance. Period. That that means some jobs are erased is a good thing. Whenever jobs are erased, it represents a freeing of human minds to focus on even more productive tasks.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The IT monkeys will still be around and needed to keep your PC running, it's the actual skilled IT that will be losing work.
When are we going to accept that technology SHOULD be used to eliminate jobs and create more free time for more people? We need a SOCIAL change, urgently. Work shouldn't always be about moving wealth upwards while we scramble around in a "Hunger Games"-type society.
Isn't the point of the cloud to move all these services to central locations where they are managed by fewer people?
Once we automate the factories, we will hire more managers and executives.
Once we outsource the call centers we will hire more technicians.
Once we use all the oil we will invent something else.
I have prime swampland for sale in the Sahara too.
We have to get use to the fact that not all people will be producers in our society and that percentage of non producers will continue to increase. Does that mean that they have no right to a decent life? This is the future we wanted, where things are becoming more automated and peoples lives become easier. Is it really making anything easier. I would say no until we have a sea change in our socioeconomic views.
Silence is a state of mime.
Because those jobs will be concentrated in fewer service provider centers, requiring fewer people to manage them.
The study posts that, once small and medium business can use cloud products to just eliminate their IT department, they'll use those savings to hire people for their core business.
Or they'll just put it towards profits and big bonuses for the CEO and senior staff, creating no jobs at all.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
and it leads to increased efficiency. Those people can on to fulfill other functions. This is mainly the reason we're not all farmers anymore like in the stone age.
Because those jobs will be concentrated in fewer service provider centers, requiring fewer people to manage them.
Isn't that what progress is supposed to be about: accomplishing the same tasks with less labor?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Why wouldn't the actual skilled IT people go work for the cloud service providers, again?
You can't insert a profitable intermediary in between the same IT people and the old company without cutting jobs somehow. Supposedly centralization will result in fewer people doing more work, so less employees allow a layer of profitable intermediaries.
So you'll have 10 former IT guys and 3 jobs. The other 7, well there's always soylent green. Oh well.
The other problem is just being realistic, the 10 former IT guys will be in the US and the 3 new jobs will be in India. So its more like all 10 will go soylent green.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
If the industry shifts and you no longer need as many IT staff, so be it. Throughout history, advances in technology have wiped out entire professions - when was the last time you met a fletcher, tanner or a pencil and paper draughtsman? This would be no different. Technology progress inevitably makes some people's professions redundant, but they also open new doors. It is for those at risk of obsolescence to spot the trend and make the transition to one of those shiny new doors before their existing one slams shut in their face.
I say bring it on.
...you might as well walk away. What follows is always bullshit.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Labor-saving technologies are only viable in the market if they ultimately eliminate more human labor than they create. New technologies, apart from entertainment applications, *always* eliminate jobs in the long run. Either that or they don't get adopted.
Eliminating jobs is their primary purpose. Promising that they will create jobs is a direct lie intended to win the hearts and minds of the very people who will be put out of work.
Eliminating jobs is a *good* purpose. If the machines do our work for us, then we don't have to. Of course, there are economic consequences, especial since traditional capitalistic values don't work well in an environment with a very high percentage of automated labor. However, these are secondary concerns to the advancement of humanity.