The Relationship Between Technology And Job Creation In The UK

Background Information

Technology is here to stay whether we admit or deny, even more fascinating is the way most aspects of our lives have become dependent on it. From Medicine, agriculture, education, space exploration, maritime and the widely debated field of Work, technology is literally present in every sector covered by human activity and life. With not more than a century since technological integration into human life, it is easy to dub it the fastest adopted concept.

However, as it is with every concept or system, there must be flaws and strengths, those who are for and those against. Taking into consideration the effect of technology in the field of work, there has been considerable debate on its ability to either cause harm or good in the economical sense of job creation. According to Holland & Bardoel (2016), “The twenty-first century has seen significant expansion in the use and availability of technology, which has created a paradigm shift in how we can work.” Therefore, largely technology is directly overhead in shaping the direction of our economy.

In his paper on technology and the future of jobs, Manyika notes that, “Automation, digital platforms, and other innovations are changing the fundamental nature of work. Understanding these shifts can help policy makers, business leaders, and workers move forward.” Manyika (2017). As well, it may lead to more innovative ways of creating more jobs.

 Despite all the benefits that are ideally raking from technology, still there is a word of cautionary on the role of technology and its adoption by businesses. In a report for the G-20 summit in Turkey 2015 on the effects of technology on employment it is argued that in as much as technology is shaping structure of employment relationships, It also has implications on individuals and even the likelihood of dragging behind World Bank Group (2015).

The aim of our paper is to explore the relationship between technology and jobs in the UK population, and examine the perception of technology as well as the importance attached to it. The study will then enable us answer the question of, “Does technology influence job creation in the United Kingdom?” 

There are several components that make up technology, some of which include:

1. Automation i.e. robotics
2. Digital platforms such as search engines

• Artificial Intelligence

1. Information Technology
2. Cloud technology, etcetera

Morgan (2014), in an article about the future of work notes that numerous interesting changes are evident throughout different technological realms that are affecting work. Consequently, the scope of work is constantly changing. In relation, Harvey debates on the role of information technology as in, “The use and control of IT provides an opportunity to be innovative in: when we work, where we work, and the way we work,” Harvey (2010).

A journal by World Bank in 2009 on the advancement of technology over time argues that, “Technologies such as smart machines, smart devices, and smart techniques,” have greatly revolutionized over the past two decades, IC4D (2009). Hence, an argument that, as technology develops more into precision, accuracy, and intelligence there is a likelihood of more adoption is possible, which in turn may influence innovations and aid in the creation of more jobs.

Aim

However, as Makortoff (2015) notes, there is a general ‘myth’ of technology being a cause of job loss. She nevertheless refutes this, arguing that research shows that over the past one and half a century there has been, “… growth of jobs in the creative, care, tech and business service industries have more than offset the loss of jobs in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors.”

Relevance of research

Our research aim is to investigate the role of technology is a given the UK economy with specific interest on its effect on jobs and the society’s well-being. As viewed, technology has a hand in the creation of jobs, which translate to better societal welfare or being a time bomb with crippling capabilities of the job market, hence potentially causing a job crisis.

In the research, we will focus on how science and technology have affected the UK society; we will additionally explore the role of science and technology in creating job opportunities, as well as the acceptance of technology by the workers in relation to job security.

Moreover, we will identify the relationship between science and technology and the well-being of the society.

Manyika (2017) relates that, with modern day automation of many sectors, there is no full guarantee of job security in a number of fields.

H₀– Science and Technology has negatively affected job creations in the UK, i.e. technology does not contribute to more jobs.

In an interview with CNBC, Stewart, a Deloitte economist says that, “I’m not saying the tech is the answer to everything, but there’s very strong evidence of job creation.” CNBC (2015).

H₁– Science and Technology leads to more job opportunities in the UK

In another study on the role of medical technology conducted by Tan et al (2002) indicates that, “Without doubt, medical technology is indispensable for people’s health and better quality of life in some areas.”

H₂– Better scientific and technological advancement translate to prospectively better healthcare in the UK   

Data used in the research is from World Values Survey Wave 5 of 2015, in a survey conducted in the UK to determine the opinion of a sample population on a range of topics, including:

1. Politics
2. Religion

• Technology

1. Happiness
2. Government
3. Self-development

• Work

Normalization test of the sample data was conducted to investigate for normality with population. The survey took place in eleven regions in the UK

The data before cleaning has 1041 entries and 416 variables. After cleaning and removing redundant, missing values, duplicate values, and prepared for data analysis, we sort out five variables for consideration having 990 sample population valid entries.

The variables are:

1. V8-Work important

The measurements of the responses were:

• 1- work is conclusively  important
• 2- work is not conclusively important
• 3- Not sure

1. V90- Opinion about Science and Technology

Measurement:

• 1- Science and technology is great
• 2- Science and technology is not significant
• 3- Not sure
• V91- Science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier

Measurement:

• 1- Yes
• 2- No
• 3- Other

1. V92- Because of science and technology, there will be more work opportunities

Measurement:

• 1- agrees
• 2-Disagrees
• Not sure

1. V93- Science and technology make our way of life change too fast

Measurement:

• 1-Agrees
• 2-Disagrees
• Other

In our study, V90 is the dependent variable while, V91, V92 and V93 will be the independent variables. We will examine the general opinion on the role played by science and technology in the given sample space considering the role of employment, welfare of the society and also how technology affects individual lives.

With the outcomes, we will infer and be able to accept or nullify the original hypotheses. 

Descriptive Statistics
	N	Range	Minimum	Maximum	Mean	Std. Deviation	Variance	Skewness	Kurtosis
	Statistic	Statistic	Statistic	Statistic	Statistic	Statistic	Statistic	Statistic	Std. Error	Statistic	Std. Error
Opinion about scientific advance	990	2	1	3	1.71	.825	.680	.577	.078	-1.291	.155
Science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier	0
Because of science and technology, there will be more opportunity	0
Science and technology make our way of life change too fast	0
Valid N (listwise)	0

Statistics
		Opinion about scientific advance	Science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier	Because of science and technology, there will be more opportunity	Science and technology make our way of life change too fast
N	Valid	990	0	0	0
Missing	51	1041	1041	1041

Conceptual Framework

Frequency Table  

Opinion about scientific advance
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Will help	520	50.0	52.5	52.5
Will harm	235	22.6	23.7	76.3
Some of each	235	22.6	23.7	100.0
Total	990	95.1	100.0
Missing	Missing; Not asked by the interviewer	1	.1
No answer	2	.2
Don´t know	48	4.6
Total	51	4.9
Total	1041	100.0		.

Science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier
		Frequency	Percent
Missing	Not asked	1041	100.0

Because of science and technology, there will be more opportunity
		Frequency	Percent
Missing	Not asked	1041	100.0

Science and technology make our way of life change too fast
		Frequency	Percent
Missing	Not asked	1041	100.0

Case Processing Summary
Cases
Valid	Missing	Total
N	Percent	N	Percent	N	Percent
0	.0%	1041	100.0%	1041	100.0%

Model Description
Model Name	MOD_1
Series or Sequence	1	Opinion about scientific advance
Transformation	Natural logarithm
Non-Seasonal Differencing	1
Seasonal Differencing	0
Length of Seasonal Period	No periodicity
Horizontal Axis Labels	Sequence numbers
Intervention Onsets	None
Reference Lines	None
Area Below the Curve	Not filled
Applying the model specifications from MOD_1

Case Processing Summary
		Opinion about scientific advance
Series or Sequence Length	1041
Number of Missing Values in the Plot	Negative or Zero Before Log Transform	51a
User-Missing	51
System-Missing	0
a. The minimum value is 1.000.

 Complex Samples: Plan

Summary
			Stage 1
Design Variables	Stratification	1	Work important
2	Because of science and technology, there will be more opportunity
3	Science and technology make our way of life change too fast
4	We depend too much on science and not enough on faith
Cluster	1	Opinion about scientific advance
Sample Information		Selection Method
Analysis Information		Estimator Assumption	Sampling with replacement
Plan File: D:AssignedstatisticsNew folderNew folder ew.csaplan Weight Variable: Science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier SRS Estimator: Sampling without replacement

Descriptive Statistics
	Mean	Std. Deviation	N
Opinion about scientific advance	1.71	.825	990
Science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier	.	.	0
Because of science and technology, there will be more opportunity	.	.	0
Science and technology make our way of life change too fast	.	.	0

Correlations
		Opinion about scientific advance	Science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier	Because of science and technology, there will be more opportunity	Science and technology make our way of life change too fast
Opinion about scientific advance	Pearson Correlation	1	.a	.a	.a
Sig. (2-tailed)		.	.	.
Sum of Squares and Cross-products	672.955	.	.	.
Covariance	.680	.	.	.
N	990	0	0	0
Science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier	Pearson Correlation	.a	.a	.a	.a
Sig. (2-tailed)	.		.	.
Sum of Squares and Cross-products	.	.	.	.
Covariance	.	.	.	.
N	0	0	0	0
Because of science and technology, there will be more opportunity	Pearson Correlation	.a	.a	.a	.a
Sig. (2-tailed)	.	.		.
Sum of Squares and Cross-products	.	.	.	.
Covariance	.	.	.	.
N	0	0	0	0
Science and technology make our way of life change too fast	Pearson Correlation	.a	.a	.a	.a
Sig. (2-tailed)	.	.	.
Sum of Squares and Cross-products	.	.	.	.
Covariance	.	.	.	.
N	0	0	0	0
a. Cannot be computed because at least one of the variables is constant.

Model Description
Model Name	MOD_6
Series or Sequence	1	Opinion about scientific advance
2	Science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier
3	Because of science and technology, there will be more opportunity
4	Science and technology make our way of life change too fast
5	We depend too much on science and not enough on faith
Transformation	None
Non-Seasonal Differencing	0
Seasonal Differencing	0
Length of Seasonal Period	No periodicity
Standardization	Applied
Distribution	Type	Normal
Location	Estimated
Scale	Estimated
Fractional Rank Estimation Method	Blom’s
Rank Assigned to Ties	Mean rank of tied values
Applying the model specifications from MOD_6

Case Processing Summary
		Opinion about scientific advance	Science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier	Because of science and technology, there will be more opportunity	Science and technology make our way of life change too fast	We depend too much on science and not enough on faith
Series or Sequence Length	1041	1041	1041	1041	1041
Number of Missing Values in the Plot	User-Missing	51	1041	1041	1041	1041
System-Missing	0	0	0	0	0
The cases are unweighted.

Opinion about scientific advance

Chi-Square Test

Frequencies 

Opinion about scientific advance
	Observed N	Expected N	Residual
Will help	520	330.0	190.0
Will harm	235	330.0	-95.0
Some of each	235	330.0	-95.0
Total	990

Test Statistics
	Opinion about scientific advance
Chi-Square	164.091a
df	2
Asymp. Sig.	.000
Exact Sig.	.000
Point Probability	.000
a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5. The minimum expected cell frequency is 330.0.

Kolmogorov-Smirnov 

One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test
		Opinion about scientific advance
N	990
Normal Parametersa,,b	Mean	1.71
Std. Deviation	.825
Most Extreme Differences	Absolute	.331
Positive	.331
Negative	-.194
Kolmogorov-Smirnov Z	10.423
Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed)	.000
a. Test distribution is Normal.
b. Calculated from data.

Independent Samples Test
		Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances	t-test for Equality of Means
				95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
		F	Sig.	t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)	Mean Difference	Std. Error Difference	Lower	Upper
Work important	Equal variances assumed	1.817	.178	.146	682	.884	.012	.081	-.147	.171
Equal variances not assumed			.143	399.316	.887	.012	.083	-.151	.175

From an analysis of the data, the following Observations are made:

The sample data used contains 990 valid entries, having:

• Mean- 1.71
• Standard deviation- 0.85
• Variance- 0.680
• Skewness statistic- 0.577 and skewness standard error- 0.078
• Negative kurtosis of -1.291 and std error of 0.155

In addition, the level of asymptotic significance for the opinion on science in the sample is 0.000 whereas the exact significance is 0.000 equally. The statistics, chi-square value is 164.091 with 2 degrees of freedom.

The frequencies indicate 520 residents think science and technology will be more helpful than it will cause harm, while 235 expect more harm from technology, whereas 235 are split between the harm and promise offered by science.

The significance level of the importance of work with equal variances assumed is 0.884 while for unequal variances is 0.887, the mean difference in Levene’s test for both variances is 0.12 whereas the upper and lower differences are -0.147 for lower and 0.171 for upper in equal variances and -0.151 for lower and 0.175 for upper in unequal variances

Elsewhere, the Pearson correlation coefficient is zero for all the independent variables, in addition to the test of normality; Kolmogorov-Smirnov Z Asymptotic test has a Significance level of 0.000. However, the opinion on science has a Pearson correlation of one, sum of least squares of 672.955 and a covariance of 0.680.

The data reflect a normal distribution from the shape of the gauss curve

Null hypothesis

Our original null hypothesis states that, “Science and Technology has negatively affected job creations in the UK.” From the results, the significance level for the opinion on whether technology is likely to create more jobs is 0.171 therefore making it insignificant. As such, we therefore reject the null hypothesis

Alternative Hypotheses

H₁

The first alternative hypothesis is, “Science and Technology leads to more job opportunities in UK.” From the chi- test, the significance level of the question on job creation is 0.000 therefore making the test variable significant. Hence, we accept the null hypothesis, indicating that technology is about the effect of creating more jobs in the UK.

1. H₂

The second alternative hypothesis is “Better scientific and technological advancement translate to prospectively better healthcare in the UK.” From the chi- test, the significance level for the effect of technology on health care is 0.000 making technology significant for healthcare. Hence, we accept the alternative hypothesis.

From the graphs, we infer that the population follows a normal distribution where the majority of the residents in the sample population are of the opinion that science and technology will be of good to the UK as a whole than its injurious potential. The opinion on science and technology is a general reflection of the underlying issues such as:

1. How it affects work
2. Its role in health care

• How it influences communication and ultimately socialization

1. Its relationship with religion 

Conclusion

Change comes in numerous ways, more often; the society is to deal with the implication and the effect of either adopting or rejecting the proposed change. As it is with every change, science and technology have its positives and negatives alike and therefore it is prone to varied opinions such as:

• Causing societal alienations through disrupting communication
• Improving health care service delivery
• Increasing business productivity
• Rendering some job sectors redundant and therefore the risk of brushing off

All these are the effects that come from adopting science and technology. It is therefore imperative to weight the measures between the potential for good and that for bad caused in order to determine the effectiveness of technology. In our case, we find out that science and technology in the UK has the ability to:

1. Create more job opportunities
2. Improve health care in the society and hence the welfare

• Radically change the way of life of citizens

Our research therefore aids, to provide a base for an argument in the widespread debate on the role technology has grown to play in various aspects of human life. Given our research findings, we can stand for the opinion that science and technology is more of benefit to the society.

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