Technology, globalisation and the squeeze on good jobs

Technology, globalisation and the squeeze on good jobs
技术与全球化冲击好工作
“Highest stock market EVER! Jobs are roaring back!” boasted Donald Trump in a tweet in
December. The US president is the most prominent advocate of the idea that quantity is almost all
that counts when it comes to jobs.
“史上最高位的股市！就业强劲回归！”唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)去年 12 月发推文夸口
称。主张在就业方面数量几乎就是一切这种观点的人中，这位美国总统是最著名的一位。
But job numbers alone are an increasingly crude barometer of economic health. For workers under
pressure from changing technology and globalisation, a new measure is required, based on job
quality as much as job quantity.
但单纯从就业数据来判断经济健康状况却是越来越不精确了。不断变化的技术和全球化使职场
中人备受压力，因此需要创建一个新的指标，同时考量工作岗位的数量和质量。
More subtle politicians have been quick to realise this. Philip Hammond, UK chancellor of the
exchequer, referred in his Budget speech in November to a “relentless focus on getting more people
into work”. But he added the condition that such work should be “good quality and well paid”.
比较敏锐的政客们很快就意识到了这一点。在去年 11 月的预算演讲中，英国财政大臣菲利普•
哈蒙德(Philip Hammond)提到了“要持续关注于让更多的人有工作”。但他补充了前提条件，
即这些工作应该是“质量好、薪酬丰厚的”。
A few days later, the UK government laid out four “grand challenges” of its industrial strategy,
including the promotion of artificial intelligence. “ Embedding AI across the UK will create
thousands of good quality jobs and drive economic growth,” the strategy document insisted.
几天后，英国政府阐述了其产业战略的四项“重大挑战”，其中包括推广人工智能。该战略文
件坚称：“让 AI 广布全英国，将创造许多优质就业岗位，推动经济增长。”
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Recent history suggests the UK may be indulging in some wishful thinking. Automation is one of the
forces identified by David Autor of MIT as squeezing out “good jobs” — the middle-skilled roles
to which “ordinary working people” (to use the politicians’ mantra) would aspire.
近年来的情况表明，英国政府可能想得过于美好了。麻省理工学院(MIT)的戴维•奥特尔(David
Autor)认为自动化是把“好工作”排挤掉的力量之一。这里说的“好工作”，是指“普通劳动
人民”（这里借用政客们的说法）所向往的中等技能工作岗位。
Globalisation is another such pressure. The remainder of the workforce is polarising into high-level
managerial and professional posts and low-tier service jobs. Such good jobs as survive demand ever
more sophisticated skills.
全球化则是另一股力量。职场上剩余的劳动者正在分化为高级管理和专业职位，以及低层次的
服务岗位。这些尚存的好工作要求具备更高级的技能。
For managers who hold on to their positions, this poses new tests. Rick Wartzman, whose book The
End of Loyalty is subtitled “The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs inAmerica”, says the challenge starts
with whether to cut jobs, or find ways to reposition staff for the automation revolution.
对于保住职位的经理们来说，这将带来新考验。《忠诚不再》(The End of Loyalty)的作者瑞克•
沃兹曼(Rick Wartzman)说，挑战始于是削减工作岗位，还是想办法重新安排员工的岗位，以适
应自动化革命。那本书的副标题是“美国好工作的兴衰”(The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in
America)。
“Management is about making these kinds of decisions,” he told me. For instance, “[how] to put
people, or combinations of people and technology, in the right position to maximise effectiveness.
Doing an across-the-board cost-cutting exercise isn’t management.”
“管理就是要做出这一类的决定，”他告诉我说。例如，“（如何）把人或人和技术的组合放
在合适位置，实现效率最大化。实施一套全方位的成本削减举措算不上管理。”
The Brookings Institution recently looked at 14m “good jobs” in the US and found that their
“digital score” — based on the knowledge, skills and tools needed to fulfil those roles — had
risen from 29 to 50 between 2002 and 2016, out of a possible score of 100 for the most “digitally
intense” occupations. In other words, basic digital skills are now a prerequisite for positions —
mechanic, nurse, builder — which traditionally open the door to advancement for the two-thirds of
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Americans who lack a college degree.
不久前，布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)在研究美国的 1400 万份“好工作”后发现，这些
好工作的“数字技能分数”——基于履行这些职务所需的知识、技能和工具——从 2002 年的
29 分上升到 2016 年的 50 分。最高分 100 分，为“数字密集度”最高的职位。换言之，具备
基本数字技能已成为从事技工、护士、建筑工等职位的一个先决条件，而传统上，干这类工作
的未取得大学学历的美国人中，有三分之二的人有升职机会。
The same challenge is multiplied by many millions in populous, fast-growing countries such as India.
One Indian manufacturing tycoon I met just shrugged when I asked whether he felt any
responsibility to the staff he would have to lay off as he installed more sophisticated machines in his
factories. His response was just one indication that digitalisation could slam the door in the face of
many young Indians, who are counting on basic literacy and numeracy to open up decent production
line jobs.
在印度等人口众多、发展迅速的国家里，同样的挑战被放大了无数倍。我问一位印度制造业大
亨，他在自己工厂里安装更先进机器时，将不得不解雇一些员工，那么他是否感觉对这些人负
有责任？他的回应只是耸耸肩。这不过是表明数字化可能会断了许多印度年轻人工作门路的迹
象之一，这些人指望着靠基本的读写和计算能力来谋求体面的生产线岗位。
Sometimes, a lack of such skills also blights the future of people forced out of good jobs. In Amy
Goldstein’s book Janesville , workers laid off by General Motors flocked to the Wisconsin town’s
college to retrain, only for their teachers to discover that some “didn’t even know how to turn [a
computer] on”.
有时，缺乏此类技能也会毁掉那些丢掉好工作的人们的未来。在埃米•戈尔茨坦(Amy Goldstein)
的著作《简斯维尔》(Janesville)中，被通用汽车公司(General Motors)解雇的员工蜂拥至这个威
斯康星州城镇的大学进行再培训，结果他们的老师却发现有些人“甚至不会开机（电脑）”。
One responsibility of future managers is to ensure that this ground-level digital education is made
available. “The next phase of the digital skills push needs to add a new, less-glamorous focus on IT
basics such as Microsoft Office and basic customer relationship management (CRM) software to the
cooler agenda of scaling up the code schools,” Brookings fellow Mark Muro wrote in a blogpost
about the think-tank’s report.
未来管理者的职责之一是确保员工有机会获得这种基础数字教育。 “推广数字技能的下一阶段，
需要在增加编程学校的高大上议程之外，加上一个新的、不那么迷人的关注点：微软 Office
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等IT基础知识和基本的客户关系管理(CRM)软件，”布鲁金斯学会研究员马克•穆罗(Mark Muro)
在一篇关于该智库报告的博文中写道。
The model, says Wartzman, needs to change to one in which managers offer staff opportunities for
lifelong learning. Ideally, this should happen on the job, rather than after redundancy, when the
efficacy of retraining may be undermined by the general lack of opportunities, as happened to
Janesville’s unemployed car workers in the depths of the 2008-09 recession.
沃兹曼说，当前模式需要转变为管理者为员工提供终身学习机会的模式。在理想情况下，这应
该发生在工作中，而不是裁员之后——那种时候机会的普遍缺乏可能会削弱再培训的效果，在
2008 年至 2009 年经济严重衰退时期，简斯维尔失业汽车工人就面临这种情形。
The last resort may be to find ways to change the status of what used to be considered poor jobs. In
Taiwan, the government successfully improved urban cleanliness by upgrading the “bad job” of
street cleaning. It now comes with a salary close to the national average and a decent pension. Public
competitions pit “clean teams” from different districts against each other.
最后一招是想办法改变那些历来被认为很差的工作的地位。在台湾，当局通过提高清洁街道这
个“坏工作”的待遇，成功地让城市变得更干净。现在，街道环卫工人的工资已接近台湾的平
均水平，并能拿到不错的养老金。公共竞赛让不同地区的“清洁团队”彼此展开竞争。
It is an idiosyncratic example, but it underlines a point that Trump may want to consider. Creating
more jobs is a fine goal; creating better jobs is even finer.
这个例子有些特殊，但它凸显了一个道理，也许特朗普愿意花心思想一想。创造更多的工作岗
位是一个美好的目标；而更值得追求的是创造优良的工作岗位。
Andrew Hill is the FT’s management editor
安德鲁•希尔(Andrew Hill)是英国《金融时报》的管理编辑