Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To eliminate the need for skilled labor in (an industry), especially by the introduction of high technology.
- v. To downgrade (a job or occupation) from a skilled to a semiskilled or unskilled position.
Wiktionary
Etymologies
- This combination of de- + skill conveys a pejorative connotation that "simplify" lacks. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“What I found far less persuasive was his implication that numerical control, and automation in general, almost inevitably oppress and "deskill" the work force.”
“We felt the umpires would get to a position where they'd check all their decisions; we could unintentionally deskill umpires over time.”
“However, it can also deskill by transferring human knowledge to software packages that workers must then follow (thus also enabling more offshore outsourcing).”
The Guardian: Yes, today's workers have less freedom, but it's not all grim
“The philosophy at Colorado has always been to deskill the operator; make the machines do all the thinking.”
Simon & Schuster: Managing New Product and Process Development
“SECRETARY REICH: The old rules of full capacity don't seem to be directly related any longer to increased employment, because companies are moving toward automation; they're using technology not to reskill and upskill the workers, but to deskill and automate.”
“We have seen that the purpose of a job is to deskill people.”
“DeMarvelous Carter comes from way out in the middle ranks of the Sithole Regional to defeat de field with delicious deskill.”
“And they are trying to deskill and bankrupt Europeans as well.”
“At a "trial" held at DC 37 of AFSCME American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees sponsored by the Coalition for Public Education forpubliced.org and hosted by Sam Anderson, a noted educational leader dedicated to wresting the school system out of mayoral control, testimony was given by dozens of parents, teachers and concerned educators describing the negative effect the mayor's "educational reform" has produced in what seems to be a part of a nationwide attempt to privatize the public schools, deskill teachers, strip them of their union rights, and firmly establish a two-tier educational system: one for the privileged and one for everyone else.”
The Huffington Post: Joel Shatzky: Educating for Democracy: The People's Trial of Mayor Bloomberg
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘deskill’.
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legerdemain, polysemic, rupestrian, callipygian, oscitancy, numen, lucubration, asperity, amalgam, apposite, wastrel, eleemosynary and 208 more...
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Quenelles of Random Palavery
More randomly-garnered terms from the world of words that don't quite yet fit into my other lists.
Goddidit, barcelona, filigrain, good-natured, ill-natured, half-bit, endosome, underplaying, parotid, denormalization, sleightgeist, wheezing and 2334 more...
Tweets
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hernesheir Cf. reskill and upskill. Nov 8, 2011