What Retail Workers Say About Technology Potentially Eliminating Their Jobs

by MR Magazine Staff

Two out of three retail workers believe that technology will eventually replace some of their job responsibilities, underscoring the rising concern about the impact of automation and cutting-edge technology on the workplace. That’s according to a new survey Thursday by The Fair Workweek Initiative, a project spawned from the non-profit labor-monitoring groups The Center for Popular Democracy and Organization United for Respect. The report is intended to reveal how U.S. retail employees perceive the growing use of technology in their daily work-lives. In short, they see it as both a concern and potential opportunity. Organizations like the World Economic Forum have forecast that innovations like machine learning will significantly alter the labor market, potentially leading to major job losses while creating new kinds of work. The retail sector is particularly prone to major disruption, led by online giant Amazon as it increases spending on new technology in an effort to cut costs. Read more at Fortune.