“It’s a given that the world population is growing”

Yes, overall, but not in the ‘modern’, developed world. What’s a given is that where capitalism creates wealth, the population shrinks (demographic numbers well below 2) and where poverty, lack of education and lack of freedom rule, the population grows.

So in a wealthy environment, where automation tends to reduce the number of jobs, the number of ‘workers’ also is reduced.

The problem arises when people from poor(er) areas migrate to the wealthier areas, instead of creating their own wealth, and thus break the ‘balance’ that capitalism sort of inherently establishes. The fact that many of these migrants are poorly educated and come to live off wellfare amplifies that problem, as they do not contribute to the economy, but hamper it.

In the end, it’s a political problem, as politicians are driven by obtaining votes and power, not by servicing the people in a moral fashion.

As long as people will be allowed to live off someone else’s productivity this situation will not improve (and I’m not referring to the small percentage of really disabled people here).

I only need to refer to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged for illustration of this fact.

So I do not see the necessity for IT staff to refrain from automating just to keep the numbers artificially up. I deal with HongKong and India staff, and they tend to keep doing even repetitive work manually, time and time again. This leaves lots of room for error, and is also deadly for innovation.

I tend to script as much as I can (not for one-off stuff, of course), if only for quality and reproducability reasons. And then there’s the intellectual challenge: writing a proper script is much more than just sequencing a number of commands.

That I may be automating myself out of a contract is a consequence of that (I’m a self-employed contractor). But then there are other contracts, and clients tend to like my approach…

My 2 cents…

But there is a line. Automated systems without the knowledgable staff to maintain them will fail. Without staff whom actually understand the software there is no way to fix bugs and problems internally, this in turn will incurr more costs long term.

The jist; automation can be great and can save your time, but use it to replace your talented workers then you’ll soon have problems down the road.

I’ve long said that my job is to automate myself out of a job. It’s tongue-in-cheek, because it implies that my job is to simply do grunt-work, and it’s not. My job is to move the company forward using the skills that I have, and can develop.

If all I bring to the table is the ability to poke at keys on a keyboard, then I deserve to be automated or outsourced out of a job. If, however, I can turn yesterday’s “new idea”, which will eventually become today’s “grunt work”, into tomorrow’s automated process, and repeat that cycle consistently, I’ll always have value.

But it means you have to keep learning, and you have to keep adjusting your skills to those needed by the marketplace. I welcome the challenge, but I can understand those who might not be able to handle that. For them, I’m afraid, other endeavors beckon.

http://esm.logic.net/2005/11/23/outsourcing/

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat1.pdf

The statement “following orders” seems to indicate that you think those are the only two options. If you look deeper and understand the company, then you should understand why those “orders” have been given. If you don’t, or you think the reasons go against your own morals, then you are probably in the wrong company.

Automation should definetly be used where possible IF it will increase safety or reduce the probability of error. Increased efficiency of material use is also a good reason, ie. to reduce wastage. However I do not think it should be pursued purely to achieve a reduction in staff numbers if it is not truly necessary for the business to survive.

If it’s not possible to source staff that might be another matter, ie. due to skill shortages. But working towards kicking existing staff out the door is unethical in my honest opinion.

I’m not a business owner/operator or even in management at this point so maybe I’ve just never had to make hard choices like that. However my goal is to own and operate my own business in the future. I like to think I’d try to offer secure and rewarding employment for anyone I did hire.

As a tech support manager, I personally look for ways to reward an employee who creates a system (or even a simple set of scripts) to automate common tasks. Such valuable employees, having relieved themselves of their grunt work, can now be given more suitable duties to help further push the company forward. My support staff may have dwindled by one “seat”, but my overall contributed value has been substantially increased.

Admittedly, I work for a small company where such initiatives are not discouraged or seen as “threatening” to the status quo. This would never work in a large corporate environment where a mentality of human “resources” implies that employees are simply statistics to be added and dropped on a ledger’s whim.

(I’m slightly biased, as co-founder of a security automation company…)