<aside> 📌 Status: still a thought dump (September 2022)

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(New) workplace norms

Firms in four-day week trial will make it permanent

More than 70 firms are taking part in the scheme where employees get 100% pay for 80% of their normal hours worked. Of the 73 companies in the trial, 41 firms responded to a survey midway through the scheme. Around 86% of those surveyed said they would keep the four-day week policy going after the trial ends. The majority of firms said it is working well for their business, while 95% said productivity had stayed the same or improved during the shorter week. More than 3,300 employees are getting one paid day off per week through the course of the trial.

Estimates

1. University of Oxford 2013 paper *“The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?”*, estimating that 47% of U.S. jobs are at risk of automation.
   1. Explanation of methodology (short)
2. 2017 University of Mannheim suggests that only 9% of jobs are exposed to automation.
3. OECD 2018 study suggests that it is actually 14%, with a further “32% of jobs have a risk of between 50 and 70% pointing to the possibility of significant change in the way these jobs are carried out as a result of automation.”

Applications

Beauty

A Robot Will Do Your Nails at Target for $10

Farming / Agriculture

• 27% of (global) employment is in agriculture (2019), via World Bank, ranging from 1.3% in the US (capital-intensive) to 42% in India (labor-intensive, often subsistence)
  • as economies develop, land and farmers move to more capital-intensive crops— boosting productivity (Agricultural composition and labor productivity, 2022)

In the US immigrant farmworkers make up [an estimated 73% of agriculture workers](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor/#:~:text=In 2014-16%2C 27 percent,percent held no work authorization.)  in the United States today. The American Farm Bureau Federation estimates that, in total, US agriculture needs 1.5 to 2 million hired workers each year. Farmers have been struggling to fill these positions; in 2019, 56% of California farmers reported being unable to find all the workers they needed over the last five years. - via FWD.us

The Future of Farming Robots - 13 High Tech Examples (Compilation)

1. Agrobot and their future of agriculture strawberry picking robot, along with a bug vacuum machine
2. Small Robot Company and their farm weeding ai robot