The world is going through tremendous economic crisis that has resulted from the persistent recession. Human progress has been slowed down considerably as the rate at which new technologies are launched also slows down. The world has now become a place of uncertainty related to the economic crisis. The economic problems are linked to one another in a highly complex manner. As one economic problem worsens, it leads to the development of another economic problem. The global unemployment rate is on a rapid rise, and this problem has particularly plagued the developing countries. This rate is not expected to decrease anytime soon, especially with technologies taking over much of the functions of human beings.
Although people blame the high rate of unemployment entirely on the global recession, they fail to take into account the fact that the rate of technology penetration has been increasing uncontrollably, and human beings are required to perform fewer and fewer functions every day. For instance, the internet has become a comprehensive source of all the information that humans were supposed to acquire through some other source previously. Telephones with modern language translating software are replacing people who were used to translate these languages. Even where human beings are still required to perform some functions, technologies such as computers have allowed them to perform these in a much shorter time.
All the above mentioned factors have undeniably led to a higher rate of unemployment. Regardless of the industry you look at, you will see that firms are employing less human power and more technology. Humans have been made far more productive through the use of these machines. Although the industries brought forth the concept of factors of production such as land and labor, it seems that the need for these is diminishing. This is because all the knowledge a human requires to perform a function can be replaced with a simple machine that takes much less time and does not even demand any benefits.
The concept of an expanding industry generating more job opportunities is no longer valid in this highly technology-led world of today. In fact, the growth of industries may just imply an even greater rate of unemployment as these new industries will find ways of replacing labor with machines in as many components as possible. Information is moving at a fast pace and consumers have become much more efficient in addressing their needs and responding to any changes in an industry. In such a scenario, it becomes essential for policy makers to take a new perspective on designing policies, much different than the approach they took in the past.