#241

Oh right. Yeah I saw NZ First were wiped out but seemed like ACT are the same schtick, possibly better in terms of image, taking the same number of seats.

#242

A very serious organisation

#243

Complete cranks

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#244

Seems there was enough care taken to make sure thereā€™s no paper trail directly linking him with the award of the contracts/grants, so no.

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#245

Itā€™s actually frustrating how hard it is to get any sense of Tova Oā€™Brien outside of the country. Dunno about the ā€˜revengeā€™ thing as it seems like the Nationals have been claiming sheā€™s ā€˜hard-leftā€™ and out to get them for a while. Anyway, would generally assume anyone in her position is likely to lean right.

(A bunch of comments online implying that during Covid press-briefings Arden was continually being treated ā€˜aggressivelyā€™ by journalists and that Oā€™Brien was maybe one of the most bullish. This was in a blog by a journalist whose defence was basically that journalists arenā€™t doing their job if they act all pally with a PM even if she is clearly doing a great job. Not sure I even disagree with that entirely but then Iā€™ve not seen any of these briefings obviously.)

#246

image

just seems like the most empty headed militarism and banal nationalism that we were fighting against in the first place

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#247

Wouldā€™ve maybe expected marginally better from the Mirror?

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#248

At least the Wales lockdown means fewer people will be out and about in the run up to tell me off for not wearing a poppy and thus disrespecting the fallen

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#249

Donā€™t really know what thread to put this in

CBI reckon that 90% of people will need new skills by 2030.
Itā€™s absolutely brutal. We canā€™t have a Tory government in the build up to this. Itā€™s fucked

#250

jesus fuck. yep. thatā€™s a ginormous timebomb. and yep, a tory majority will block every single one of those recommendations

#251

The headline feels quite OTT

#252

Donā€™t think it is. The more important part is that itā€™s going to drive further inequality though.
I get a designated amount of time to upskill myself at work. That doesnā€™t happen for people whoā€™s jobs are gonna go extremely quickly.
Businesses arenā€™t going ā€œthis pandemic shows we need more people to cover sickness and deathā€ theyā€™re going ā€œhow do we do this without peopleā€

#253

Iā€™ve seen some rumblings about how businesses from various sectors of industry (banking, retail, etc) are considering automation in customer service in light of the Covid crisis and the changes it has forced on them. Focus from what Iā€™ve read seems to be on how the current situation has highlighted the need for human contact, and how automation without people is actually detrimental to business in the long and short terms because it leads to customer frustration and dissatisfaction, so as a test case actually Covid seems to be proving against the dehumanising of customer service positions, which is a small ray of hope.

#254

Yeah I think thereā€™s just going to be service Jobs available to most people going forward

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#255

Yeah, I donā€™t doubt that and thatā€™s clearly the inequality piece that you mentioned, a whole ecosystem of service employees on brittle low-remuneration contracts with an out-of-control, out-of-reach overseer class. Absolutely horror show when you think about it like that, I take your point and sadly retract my glimmer of hope

#256

I realize what kind of media outlet this is butā€¦itā€™s interesting that they donā€™t advocate cutting working hours across the board and maintaining current levels of pay, regardless of the employees current work load.

#257

The thing is as much as people like human interaction the actual practicality of doing any business at all solely online is becoming much more prevalent. No rents, no pandemic problems, etc etc. As itā€™s increasingly online thereā€™s simply no reason not to outsource customer service too particularly if you want service round the clock, and theyā€™re just as capable and smart but for an absolute fraction of the price.

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#258

Especially when the contracts there are so flexible too, Iā€™ve trained teams where 10 of them equated to my 1 wage and because they worked for the service providing outsourcer rather than my business specifically they could up the coverage to 40 agents for christmas and whittle it down to 10 again the next week and nobody would be out of a job there, theyā€™re just moved to the next corporation within that umbrella employer.

#259

And of course, the more the technology is implemented, the better it will get, and the more capability it can take up. Something that is clear is that there is a notion of ā€˜freeing upā€™ humans to do what is considered ā€˜valuableā€™ - relationship-building, creativity, business growth work, but not everyone is suited to that, and there canā€™t be infinite ā€˜creativeā€™ roles, so this notion is essentially bullshit. Often classist bullshit too, though suitability for ā€˜creativeā€™ roles isnā€™t linked to education directly.

I mean, Iā€™m definitely living on a certain level of concern as I am technically a specialist data entry worker, but Iā€™ve seen automated speech to text in my field and itā€™s nowhere near where it needs to be to even take humans out of the edit process, let alone full replacement. But I worry, a lot.

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#260

the kier starmer story

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