Dock Work
In the 1900's dock work was very hard as it was mainly manual labour. The workers job involved carrying very heavy items to the ship. In the 1970's dock work had changed greatly because, the workers didnt have to lift the luggage with their bare hands they now had forklifts and cranes to lift the luggage for them. In the 1900's being a dockworker would have been a very tough job becuase you would have to have been very strong and your hands would have been rubbed red raw, and you didn't always get work, to have a higher chance of getting work you would have had to buy the foreman a drink.
Car Production
At the start of the 20th century cars were made by hand and it was 4 people to a car, this meant that making cars took a very long time (only roughy 100 cars a year). But towards the end of the century car production has become very computerised and mechanised for example instead of the workers woring on assembly lines, there are robot arms being used meaning less and less workers are needed for the job. In the 1900's to build cars faster Taylorism was introduced, but then Henry Ford decided to improve this method by creating the assembly line, which is when you have 1 worker doing 1 specific job e.g. putting screws in. The new technology has greated affected the workers in car production because the job has become less skilled becuase it is robots that are doing all of the work.
Ship Building
At the start of the 20th century ship building would have been a very skilled job, because workers had different jobs to do e.g. riveters, riverting would have been a very skilled job. So ship building was a job for skilled workers that lived near the docks.
In the 1970's ship building has changed because they were now using a lot more advanced machinery and it has lost alot of its skill, but workers with new skills have been introduced like driving and manouvering a forklift truck. But technology is not the only thing that is causing change in the ship building indstry because the war had increased demand for ships, so therefore they would have to change the way they make the ships to meet with the demands.
Shop Work
At the start of the 1900's shop work was a very skilled and social job for example you needed to know weights and how to cut meat properly you also had to work out a lot of calculations in your head. There was no supermarkets either so you would have had to go to your local shop and the shop keepers would have gotten to know their customers very well. Todays shop work is very different as the social and skill work has completely gone as you dont have to cut anything as they are packaged already and you dont need to be good at calculations as you can just add everything up at the till by uesing the barcodes. There have been new technology introduced in shops such as tills and barcodes these have both been introduced so that the till worker can serve more people. Also working hours today have been made longer as the workers in the 1900's did not need to work on a sunday whereas supermarkets today are open on a sunday.
So in conclusion technology has greatly affected the workers because most of the jobs have become less skilled, and the workers do not have to do much anymore for example in car production, because robotic arms are doing the majority of the work instead of the workers, so technology has affected the workers by making the jobs less skilled.
