Technology is changing the way Canadians work.
According to a recent report by the Angus Reid Institute, nearly two thirds of Canadians believe that technology is poised to eliminate more jobs than it will create.
One in five Canadian workers report that their job security has already been compromised on account of technological changes in the workplace. In addition, three in ten say they anticipate this will happen within the next decade.
What’s interesting is that Angus Reid reports that those respondents who believe this come from all walks of life, though are more likely to come from the manufacturing sector.
On the other hand, Canadians report primarily positive interactions with technology in general. On that point, over half of Canadians claim that technology has had a positive effect on their experience in the workplace over the past decade while 44 percent see it as a consistently positive factor in their working lives.
The report goes on to reveal that the expansion of the knowledge economy has managed to swallow the job losses experienced in the manufacturing sector. Unemployment, claimed the authors, is roughly where it was 40 years ago.
However, what’s more surprising is that over half of Canadians say that technology has yet to have a any meaningful impact on their job security, whether it be positive or negative. While it’s clear that the state of work in Canada is changing, it very well might be changing from the top-down. In the next few years, members of the workplace will likely begin to see the effects of the technological changes made at the senior management level of many Canadian companies.
Job satisfaction in Canada, however, is another story. Almost half of Canadians, or 48 percent, state that technology has had a positive impact on their job satisfaction compared to the 14 percent who claim otherwise. Furthermore, this trend is poised to continue.
One area that has yet to be impacted, according to those surveyed, is Canadians’ pay and benefits. While many would assume job satisfaction would be directly related to better wages, it appears that many Canadians don’t see more than a slight improvement in their pay and benefits as a result of technology in the workplace.
The survey was split into categories concerning digital technology and physical technology. This survey was conducted online during the period of July 26th to 29th of this year and consulted a sample size of 1,516 Canadian adults. These results contain a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Related reading: Canadian businesses have yet to brace themselves for a digital future
[source]Angus Reid Institue[/source]
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