Electronics and the Future of Work: The Impact on Pink and White Collar Workers

Much as in the late 1950s and early 1960s we read about the impact that automation would have on blue collar jobs, so is literature now beginning to appear on what effects can be expected as new, highly sophisticated equipment is introduced into the office—the world of pink and white collar workers. Because of an expanding economy and a rapidly growing segment of the service sector, as well as the fact that the automated equipment introduced in the 1950s and 1960s was both unifunctional and expensive, the dire predictions as to its impact proved wrong. But the 1950s scenario no longer holds. Thus the introduction of new office equipment may well have an adverse impact on both the quantity and quality of jobs, particularly the lower paying jobs traditionally held by women. Hard data on the actual impact of the new technology on the office work force are hard to pinpoint: the phenomenon is a very recent one; other variables usually come into play; and we are now living in a global economy—jobs that appear lost may simply have been moved. Perhaps the best way to fill the data gap would be to work with one or more of the labor unions that have organized office workers to develop the best methods to study the subject.