Where technology is better able to complete skilled work, a role can be reduced to simpler more manual tasks requiring only a lower level of skill. This “deskilling” can bring substantial efficiency and costs saving, resulting in better and cheaper products. But deskilling can also lead to irreparable loss of important skills.
This “explainer” article considers the historical, societal and legal implications of deskilling.
What is deskilling?
Deskilling is where the need for skilled labour within an industry is eliminated or diminished by the introduction of technologies operated by semiskilled or unskilled workers.
An example of deskilling might be a coffee machine replacing a skilled barista, or a CNC machine replacing a machinist.
Deskilling can also take place where complex skilled work undertaken by workers are broken down into simple unskilled tasks. Rather than an entire role being completely deskilled, technology can replace aspects of the work or help workers carry out the work efficiently.
Deskilling meaning
Automation provides a current case study of deskilling in practice. Traditionally labour-intensive professions such as craftsmen, machinists or factory workers have seen their work and processes significantly impacted by technology (e.g. robotics, computers) that requires only minimal – and, importantly, less skilled – human assistance. Where work is deskilled, the leftover deskilled role no longer demands the same level of salary.
Arguably, it is rarely the aim of a business to purposefully reduce the skills of their workforce. Deskilling can be seen as being a side effect of the necessary investment in technology. Capitalism and consumers increasingly demand greater output at a lower cost.
Some criticise the never-ending march of technological progress for “decreasing quality, demeaning labour, and undermining community”.
Deskilling and reskilling
Deskilling involves the deterioration of highly skilled work into low skilled work. If deskilling can lead to large scale job loss, then the solution is reskilling.
Reskilling involves training current employees for a new position or even a different occupation. For example, an office administrative assistant whose filing job is no longer required after the investment of electronic document management software, could learn new skills to perform a different in-demand job, such as a web developer or document management system engineer.
Reskilling is different to upskilling. Upskilling similarly involves investing in the skillset of a workforce. However, upskilling does not involve the loss of jobs. Upskilling is about helping staff do their existing roles better and more efficiently, whereas reskilling is about preparing them for new roles.
Both reskilling and upskilling are policies used prevalently in the UK economy. In a global survey conducted by McKinsey, 56% of respondent employers had deployed reskilling programs in the past five years to tackle their organisation’s skill’s gap. However, the uptake of reskilling exercises will have to increase in the next ten years: research conducted by the CBI showed that 90% of people will need new skills by 2030.
Reskilling enables firms to avoid onboarding requirements (and its associated costs), motivate employees, and meet skill shortages without attracting the premium that comes with hiring external candidates. It allows employers to build their employment brand and ensure that “investing in people” is more than just words.
Deskilling examples
Deskilling is not a recent phenomenon. Workers have been deskilled (and ultimately displaced) by technological innovations for generations.
Deskilling and agriculture
In 1794, investor Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin, a machine that radically changed the production of cotton. This machine had the ability to isolate the cotton seed from cotton fibre creating up to 25 kg of cotton in one day. What was once a relatively skilled but laborious role became obsolete.
One day of production with the machine amounted hundreds of man-hours.
Although the cotton gin reduced the labour of removing seeds, it did not reduce the effort required to grow and pick the cotton. The deskilling of one role in this case just shifted work to another low skill role. More slaves could be reallocated to carrying out field work. The result was that cotton growing became so profitable for the planters that many more people entered the industry. The cotton gin therefore greatly increased demand for both cotton land and slaves.
Deskilling in the textile industry
During the early 19th Century there was rising popularity of automated textile equipment, threatening the jobs and livelihoods of skilled workers. This technology deskilled the role of a textile worker and allowed them to be replaced by cheaper and less skilled workers.
In England, this led to machine-breaking disturbances that rocked the wool and cotton industries known as the 'Luddite riots'. Deskilled workers worried for their livelihoods sent threatening letters to employers to discourage adoption of the new technology. Workers even went so far as to break into factories to destroy the new machines, such as the new wide weaving frames.
Deskilling and economics
Is deskilling a direct motivator of technological advancement? Or is deskilling simply a by-product of the need for businesses to compete successfully on cost? There is some disagreement about this.
Harry Braverman and deskilling
Harry Braverman, an American political economist, is one of the biggest names in deskilling theory. Much of Braverman’s work has origins in Marxism. Karl Marx and Adam Smith regarded technological development as being intentionally deskilling. They argued that any advancement had the sole intention of controlling labour.
Marx and Smith argued that businesses enjoy economies of scale as production becomes increasingly efficient. Consequently, there is a reduced need for workers.
Braverman reiterated this Marxist viewpoint in his seminal work ‘Labor and Monopoly Capital’ published in 1974. Braverman’s deskilling theory came from personal experience. He worked as a sheet metal worker, then as an office worker. He theorised that by breaking down complex skilled work into simple unskilled tasks, new technology could replace workers. Braverman found that businesses’ intention behind technological investment was to either to replace workers or make them work faster. Together, these were the two main factors which led to the degradation of – and deskilling of – work.
Deskilling and the neoliberal stance
The neoliberal ideology takes a less cynical standpoint on deskilling.
Neoliberals argue that technological change support the skill-enhancing opportunities of workers, rather than merely simplifying and deskilling workers’ roles. Take, for example, modern work such as Machine Learning Analyst, Hybrid Engine Engineer, or even a youtuber. None of these roles would exist without the steady march of technology. Technological change might affect some roles, but create others.
In this way, the neoliberal view sees deskilling as an unintentional by-product, rather than an intrinsic motivator.
A Glasgow University paper looked at neoliberalism across Europe and considered deskilling in the context of automobile manufacture. The decline of high skilled manufacturing work did not lead to a reduction in GDP in many areas, although it acknowledged that overall economic improvement can take time.
Modern deskilling and the future of work
Today, many sectors are going through significant change. Disruptive technology is changing the how and when of work, transforming roles and often deskilling them.
Manufacturing and deskilling
As discussed above, the manufacturing industry was made up of highly skilled artisans. After the industrial revolution and adoption of factory systems and assembly lines, the industry drastically altered with many manufacturing jobs having been deskilled. But the industry is set for even greater change and these may not be easy to adapt to for the current generation of manufacturing workers.
The rise of automation may create new tasks, but these are often tasks for other non-manufacturing workers to complete. Manufacturing workers are not acquiring skills that are comparable to those that previous generations of manufacturing workers possess. Any new skill-intensive tasks created by automation have tended to be tasks for white collar workers, and so the traditionally highly skilled manufacturing roles are slowly being deskilled.
The effect of this is that up to 20 million manufacturing jobs around the world could be replaced by robots by 2030, according to analysis firm Oxford Economics. Their research claims that each new industrial robot wipes out 1.6 manufacturing jobs. Regions where more people have lower level skills are much more vulnerable to the loss of jobs due to robots. About 1.7 million manufacturing jobs have already been lost to robots since 2000, including 400,000 in Europe, 260,000 in the US, and 550,000 in China. Oxford Economics believe that this number will only rise.
Deskilling and customer service
In another area, chatbots (a computer program that simulates human conversation through voice commands or text chats or both) have been revolutionising how businesses interact with their customers for some time. Chatbots provide always-available customer support, allow for data analytics and save costs in the long run. One CEO claims that chatbots and AI will completely replace the call centre industry. After developing their own chatbot, his company was able to automate 56.9%of queries and the customer services team only had to respond to those types of questions that were never consulted before.
The technology is yet to develop enough to solve complex queries, and neither is it able to replicate the emotional responses customers usually identify with their experience. Technology like this is still years away .
Arguably therefore, this is a role where technology has not yet deskilled workers. It has removed all routine and repetitive customer service queries. The remaining queries are therefore difficult and unique, requiring extra skill and expertise. Rather than deskilling this area, could technology actually lead to an upskilling of customer services workers?
Employment law and deskilling
Where technology augments an employee’s work, there may be an overall reduction in the employer’s need for to carry out work of a particular kind. This is a redundancy situation.
Technically, the employer will still have a need for work of a particular kind to be done. However, that will be done by technology. Since machines or robots will be continuing the work, a deskilled and newly redundant employee cannot argue that there is need for employees to carry out work of particular kind.
Perhaps policymakers will need to consider regulating the circumstances in which a robot may be introduced to the workplace or the extra responsibilities of an employer to support an employee who faces this scenario. It will be politically difficult to strike the appropriate balance between employee protection and employer flexibility. And, as discussed above, technological change is often creatively destructive. While some roles are changed or eliminated, new ones are created with consumers benefiting from better and cheaper products.
In the longer term, deskilling could lead to an increasing focus on amending existing redundancy laws. For example, to ensure that employees receive retraining where roles become redundant as a result of new technology, a reduction in the qualifying period for statutory redundancy pay, or an increase to statutory redundancy pay entitlements, could all drive employers to invest more heavily in retraining deskilled workers.. With a better more adaptable labour market, the entire economy could benefit from a more efficient allocation of resources.