Will I be traded for a robot?

The world is becoming increasingly disruptive and, especially since the 2020 pandemic, the digitalization process has accelerated.

This digitalization has had a big impact on the workplace as it has facilitated digitization to embrace new social realities through new paths and solutions. At a time when uncertainty is being generated in society, we must establish a labor framework that benefits all parties involved: citizens, companies and administration.

We can see that throughout history, the end of the work has been announced many times, eventually changing and adapting to the social and economic realities of the moment. This is also what is happening now and portends important social changes.

But this is just an accelerating trend: back in 2016, the World Economic Forum noted that more than half of the people studying at that time would end up working in jobs that did not yet exist.

Not surprisingly, the labor market has a speed and capacity for change much higher than the educational one, leaving behind knowledge-oriented learning and rigid learning content. Professional careers that include skills related to innovation and adaptability and able to work in a digital environment will move away from this obsolescence.

Work polarization

Technology will undoubtedly become an important niche for new jobs and will improve the quality of some of the existing ones, and dangerous or repetitive jobs will be automated. We will move to a polarized model in which on the one hand we will have more skilled jobs, and on the other hand we will have jobs related to service activities with a low or medium need for skills.

Among the qualified vacancies we can see: information security analysts, Internet of things (IoT) specialists or process automation specialists, among others. On the other hand, jobs would be, for example, sales or content production.

Technology will undoubtedly become an important niche for new jobs and improve the quality of existing ones.

People and machines: a new working couple

The World Economic Forum’s 2020 report on the future of work indicates that by 2025, about 85 million jobs could be replaced by machines, but that 97 million will be adapted to this new machine-human configuration. Thus, rather than limiting jobs, it seems that a real transformation of the labor sector can indeed be expected.

With the invasion of machines, routine, dangerous or fast-paced work processes will be automated, and on the other hand, new jobs will be created for their design, creation, management and control. Thus, if the global trend is towards technology, then thinking that computer scientists should be introduced into all areas of work is counterintuitive, as we currently see.

Technological skills are being added to traditional jobs to enable them to work in a digital environment. For example, a doctor who can work with a robot, a police officer who monitors with a drone, or a nearby textile store that can sell Online.

In 2017, the consulting firm McKinsey & Company proposed as a possible scenario that between 75 and 375 million workers in 2030 would have to change their occupational categories. To do this, it will be necessary to obtain a higher educational level or develop the social and emotional skills of creativity, critical thinking, etc. In short, skills that are difficult to automate.

This is also reflected in other reports such as the World Economic Forum 2020, which indicates that skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, resilience, resilience and flexibility will become extremely important for companies.

These types of skills give workers an advantage over technology as they are essential for job development and are mostly human and difficult to replicate with machines. Therefore, it is these skills that we should be promoting, rather than trying to imitate or outperform technology in more automated tasks. Upskilling and professional development are becoming increasingly important and are fundamental to adapting to new changes in the world of work.

We will not change people to robots, we will change our approach to work

We are facing a fourth industrial revolution that is transforming society and the global economy and is characterized by more accessible and compact technologies, the ubiquitous Internet, artificial intelligence and machine learning. But this complex, disruptive and highly technological scenario requires and will continue to require new jobs. Some already exist (artificial intelligence specialists, e-commerce platform developers), others are hard to imagine without a prospective study.

The distribution of these technologization processes will not be homogeneous either by industry or geographically, and, consequently, by jobs. It seems that instead of robots replacing humans, humans will work with robots. In other words: we will change the way we work.

This idea includes our attitude to work and our attitude to it. Other global trends, not necessarily technological, include but are not limited to project work, results orientation, and concern for the environment.

Employees are human and suffer from human problems such as burnout or job frustration. This can lead to tendencies to quit jobs, even in times of uncertainty.

The only trend that seems to be constant in the changing work scenario is its clear connection to what it feeds on: people.

Therefore, tailoring our job outlook to technological and social megatrends will put us in a better position in the future job market. In turn, entrepreneurs and HR managers need to factor these megatrends into managing their teams, assuming they are people first.

This article was originally published in Telos Fundación Telefónica magazine.

Michel Madeleine Camara Mora, Professor, Department of Criminology and Security, Camilo José Sela University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.

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