Automation and the future of jobs the technological challenge for the world's workers and governments

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Automation will occupy more than 11 million jobs in the United States of America alone in the next decade, according to a report issued by Forrester a few days ago.

This is the bad news, but the good news is that automation will simultaneously create 9.63 million new jobs, and on that basis the net job loss will be 1.42 million.

This is in America as in the world, and according to a recently published World Economic Forum report , the rate of dependence on machines in all types of jobs will rise to 52% by 2025, and automation, robotics and artificial intelligence will eliminate 85 million jobs globally in the same period.

But the optimism is that automation will also create 97 million new jobs in the future, and this is something to hope, even though these jobs will be completely new, and many of them do not exist yet, and in any case, these are large numbers and huge changes will occur in the labor market in the future In different countries and societies, which requires rapid and practical intervention by governments, companies and workers themselves.

What can we do to meet this challenge?

To answer this question, the American journalist and writer specializing in technology affairs, John B. Mello, surveyed a group of experts in this field via the “Tech News World” platform , including JP Gunder, Vice President of Forrester Corporation and one of the authors of the aforementioned report. He began by saying, "This will mean that employees need to be rehabilitated and acquire new skills, which is not something every worker can accomplish alone."

He continued, "However, the ability of countries' public policies to succeed in meeting this challenge will differ from one country to another. For example, in Germany, where there are strong links between universities and employers, it will be easier to succeed compared to the United States, where employees are often expected to find their own solutions. themselves.”

The importance of rehabilitation and skill refinement

For his part, Jayant Narayan, Director of the Global Action Alliance for Artificial Intelligence of the World Economic Forum, told TechNewsworld that job losses will create challenges in both the government and private sectors, “at the government level, it raises questions about social safety nets, investment in learning programs for life, training citizens in STEM fields, and other important factors.”

He added, "Some of these criteria, such as reskilling, will have a medium to long-term horizon, and we should not expect a quick solution to reskilling. As for the private sector, this raises questions about helping workers move out of traditional jobs and occupations towards Develop a broader set of skills that are in keeping with the zeitgeist.

Daryl West, vice president of government studies at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization in Washington, stresses that "a lot of retraining is needed for workers."

He explained, "There are retraining programs that already exist, but they are often not good enough, and they do not prepare people for the new jobs that are created... We need better programs that match the new jobs, and the problem is that many people who are at risk of losing their jobs do not have the skills necessary for these. new jobs."

"A lot of programs focus on very specific tasks, but the workplace is changing so dramatically that it's hard to find jobs for people who can only do one thing. We need programs that understand what companies need and the skills they're looking for and cover them by offering Appropriate training for workers.

Future professions and the importance of coexistence between humans and robots

Returning to Jayant Narayan, who emphasized in his statements to John B Melo through the aforementioned platform that universities can contribute to re-skilling by creating mixed courses that combine humanities and technical sciences. "Engineers need to understand the ethics and implications of the systems before they design them," he said.

In this context, Daryl West said that community colleges with only two years of schooling do a better job than four-year universities in preparing students for jobs.

He explained, "Community colleges are more oriented towards the local labor market... They are trying to give students practical skills that will provide them with jobs in the future, while some universities educate and train students in the professions that existed in the past, and not on the new professions that appear now."

For his part, Forster explained that the new jobs that will be created through automation will be in the field of professional services and information technology, as well as in new industries, such as renewable energy, green buildings, smart cities and infrastructure.

Gaunder noted that people working in the new jobs should be familiar with working alongside machines. "Whether you have technical skills or not, you should be comfortable working in a mixed team of humans and machines in which intelligent software plays a major role," he said.

He added that the greatest impact of technology in the next stage will come in the matter of "changing the tasks" that form the basis of any particular job, not doing or assuming the job itself.

Going back to Forrester's report, which showed that giving up a specific task — such as automating expense reports, increasing the ability to solve data problems, or letting a robot sweep the floor — changes the configuration of a particular job rather than replacing it. Forrester expects 80% of jobs to be affected in this way by 2030, improving the employee experience as specific tasks move to machines rather than people.

Leaders change their attitude

Forrester also found a change of heart among the top leadership on automation. She explained that leaders and managers have stopped seeing it primarily as an opportunity to cut costs and are now seeing in automation a broader range of potential benefits.

She cited company data showing that 41% of data and analytics decision makers described cost savings as an advantage of adopting automation in 2018, but only 25% said the same in 2021.

In addition, Forrester found a significant increase in the proportion of leaders who indicated deeper insights and viewed "competitive differentiation" as advantages created by automation.

Among the range of other benefits created by automation mentioned in the report are filling talent gaps, freeing up employees to perform more advanced work, improving customer experience, quality and safety, and gaining deeper insights from data analysis to improve and develop tasks and processes within the work environment.

"Automation can be useful in freeing people from dirty, dangerous, routine and completely inferior jobs," West told TechNewsworld.

Building confidence

The report pointed to fears that technology will destroy jobs that are still popular among broad sectors of people, and may be justified, but the impact of automation on jobs will be much less than expected in the future as seen by many observers.

Instead, technology and people will continue to increasingly engage in repetitive and interconnected collaborations, forming human/machine teams that lead to new levels of quality and productivity, improved customer service, and improved services to people.

Narayan commented on this point in his remarks to John B. Melo, "This is a process of building trust, and workers must feel part of the journey."

As for West, he emphasized that "the most important thing companies can do is retrain their workers and cadres... If people see that an employer brings in automation but trains employees and workers in his company for other types of new jobs instead of firing them, workers will be more accepting of it. What not The workers want them to be fired and left without enough income to support themselves and their families.”