Are you scared of losing your job? 22 million Americans lost their jobs due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdowns in 2020, and many still remain at risk of long-term unemployment and a lack of economic opportunity. Even before the pandemic, systemic issues linked to globalization, such as the offshoring and automation of low-wage jobs had already displaced much of the workforce in vital economic sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing. There are serious ethical implications to this topic, ranging from equity of income distribution by ethnicity and race, to the rise of poverty, educational inequality, poor living standards and mental health issues. A long-term gap in employment opportunities could lead to greater income inequality and lower economic development, health and standard of living outcomes across the board, and more research is therefore crucial to understand how this issue may be addressed effectively. Government policy should play a significant role in alleviating this issue, because it can create new jobs and skilled workers through training and strategic investments, when faced with the impact of the disruptive trends listed above.
Background Information on Problem
Globalization has placed a broad swathe of jobs at risk from offshoring, automation and the global pandemic, and this is only set to accelerate in years to come. Frey & Osborne (2017) showed that up to 47% of the global population’s careers and professions could be automated over the next 20 years. These include both low-wage, low-skilled professions such as manufacturers, farmers and machinists, who have their roles taken over by automated tractors and assembly robots, as well as high-wage, high-skilled professions such as consultants and accounting advisors, who could be displaced by data mining insights software (Frey & Osborne, 2017). The authors also show empirical evidence that it is more likely for an individual with lower wage and skills to have their roles automated than one with high wage and skills (Frey & Osborne, 2017). For example, 60% of food preparation and cleaning jobs may be automated in the coming years, but only 35-45% of healthcare and information technology jobs may be automated in a similar way over the same period (Grossman et al, 2018).
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The brunt of the impact from such a loss in employment and economic opportunity is disproportionately borne by gender and racial minorities, as well as lower-income groups. This poses significant ethical implications. For example, Latinos and African Americans have a much higher risk of job automation, at 61.2% for Hispanics and 55.1% for blacks, versus a lower risk level for Asians (43.2%) and Whites (48.9%) (Grossman et al, 2019). Chessell (2018) also notes that labor market outcomes are set to decline in a disproportionately unfair manner for women and ethnic minorities, and that targeted interventions are necessary for these segments. This trend is driven not only by lower educational qualifications and access to adequate tools for hiring and employment within these communities, but also by implicit discrimination against these minority groups within the hiring process.
Solutions
Foremost, from a policy perspective, governments should intervene to provide unemployment benefits and a universal basic income, which would help to alleviate the short-term impacts of unemployment and a lack of economic opportunity. These financial subsidies would help to ensure that the basic material, health and education needs of citizens who have been left displaced by automation, offshoring and pandemics are met, and help them to build a stable buffer of income to reinvest in training initiatives and entrepreneurship, which could help provide greater employment and economic opportunities. Furthermore, such universal basic income and subsidy policies would help to address the ethical implications of a lack of access to income for marginalized groups, and would help to break the poverty cycle for those groups (Brunn & Duka, 2018). This would allow them to invest more in their children’s healthcare, education and training, thereby ensuring stronger employment and economic opportunity outcomes for succeeding generations. Furthermore, the government can provide subsidies for workers to pursue their own entrepreneurial activities, such as home baking, repair and maintenance businesses. This is particularly helpful in empowering workers to seek their own employment opportunities in a meaningful way.
Secondly, from an education perspective, a key area of intervention for governments to alleviate the issue of unemployment and a lack of economic
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