Employment: Automation

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord recognises that there are very positive sides to developments in this field. As he will know, the World Economic Forum estimates that, although there might be some 75 million jobs lost globally as a result of change of this sort, another 133 million could be created. However, the noble Lord is right to point out that there will be disadvantages for people, particularly for those who are low-skilled and particularly—he mentioned the gender point—for women. Therefore, as the industrial strategy makes clear, it is very important that we look to retraining. I refer the noble Lord to large parts of the industrial strategy that point in the direction of retraining and upskilling our workforce as much as possible.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend tell us what happened to all the women who were employed as secretaries and personal assistants when the introduction of the word processor made them all redundant?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my noble friend is quite right: they found new jobs, better jobs, more highly skilled jobs and, probably, more interesting jobs.