UMD360: Trade and Economy under Trump

This collection of stories was created by the talented students at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism during the spring semester of 2017 where they created immersive 360 video stories on the first 10 days of the Trump Administration.

Producer: Danielle Stein
Producer: Jack Paciotti
Writer: Scott Gelman
Shooter: Danielle Stein

When Kiernan Leonard arrives to work at Sweetgreen’s College Park, Maryland, location, her routine includes interacting with local customers. As a cashier, her primary responsibility is taking orders while chefs create variations of salads and bowls in the kitchen. Often, customers make specific requests to add or substitute an ingredient, something she is required to document.

Custom orders are also possible at Eatsa, a similar casual restaurant offering salads and quinoa bowls at two Washington locations, but beyond the few floor employees, there isn’t as much human interaction. Customers complete their orders using one of the standing iPads and pick the meal up from a cubbie protected by an LCD screen. While there are workers in the kitchen, the process is partially automated.

Emerging technology has allowed restaurants such as Eatsa to limit the number of employees working at one time, a trend that aligns with the findings of a January McKinsey study that revealed about 73 percent of food services jobs can be automated. Machines can perform 43 percent of jobs across 19 industrial sectors, according to the report.

The report, released Jan. 12, came days before President Donald Trump’s administration signed an executive order aimed at withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an international trade agreement created to improve economic relations between participating countries. Japan, Vietnam, Mexico, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Canada, Peru and the U.S. were all included.

In its first 10 days, the administration promised to prevent outsourcing and therefore increase the number of domestic jobs available. However, new technologies might present a comparable threat to the U.S. economy.

“There’s been a lot of chatter about how technology is taking over jobs and automation is going to make a lot of us obsolete,” Dr. Nicole Smith, the chief economist at Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce, said. “There’s a lot of merit to that argument because particular types of machines are cooking for you or making your pizza. [You] can send a restaurant order on your iPad. I can see there’s a little bit of anxiety like, “What’s going to happen to me?”

The accommodation and food services industries have the greatest potential for automation, according to the report, but 13 sectors evaluated had an automation potential of more than 40 percent. Predictable physical activities make technology best to produce within the food services sector.

However, existing or emerging technology is only capable of completely performing five percent of jobs, and some companies don’t feel threatened by the newest technological trends. About 16 percent of CEOs expect to hire more employees as new technology becomes available, according to a PriceWaterHouseCoopers report.

While technology has the potential to replace human workers, it can also create new opportunities, Smith said. Humans using new machines to complement their current tasks make themselves valuable at a time when “the standard of living is much higher.”

April’s 4.4 percent unemployment rate is an all-time low, Smith said, and it’s unlikely technological innovation quickly has a dramatic effect on the economy. But as new machines are implemented across industries, people like Leonard can find themselves without a job.

“Technology, with the creation of jobs, will continue to create jobs, will continue to create opportunity, will continue to destroy jobs and continue to be innovative, which is what technology is all about,” Smith said.