A Consideration of Emerging Worker's Roles In an Automated Future
As automation and robotics begin to take over jobs that were largely staffed by semi-skilled workers, it is time for soon-to-be outsourced workers to change their skill sets.
In an article published in the U.S. publication “Forbes” back in November of 2017, a study by the McKinsey Global Institutes estimates that between 400 to 800 million jobs will be lost, globally, to automation and robotics by 2030 (Forbes.com, 2017). With the almost predictable outsourcing of human capitol to technology, it is time that we humans look at how we will maintain meaningful employment in the not so distant future.
It would appear that a larger number of tomorrow’s workforce is attending college to obtain degrees in the STEM related fields. That is great! The world needs more engineers, scientists, and mathematicians. However, where the predictable gap may arise in the future technological workforce is in the amount of skilled technicians that will be needed, versus available, to service automated equipment.
The need for service technicians with basic and intermediate training in a variety of engineering disciplines will be required to keep an automated economy running. However, are the world’s economies ready for this workforce switch? Well, it is not easy to answer that question. As we look towards the near future, and at the current millennial generation, we see a large group of people that range the gamut of IT and software related familiarity.
The younger, and emerging generations are observably more technically savvy than their parent’s generation. This is the natural circumstance of growing up in a technical environment. What is not quantifiable is if the younger and emerging generation abilities to understand, troubleshoot, and repair the physical technology that they interact with everyday. Although countries rate their overall student abilities to perform in science related fields while they are in school, they do not look at the practical ability for students to maintain hardware. This disconnect between scientific ability and practical aptitude seems to have gone on largely unmeasured. Students with an average, or a slightly above average grasp of math and science may be the candidates that society needs to focus on to become tomorrow’s maintainers. By offering soft to hard training in entry level engineering fields to younger students, the world of tomorrow may be better equipped to keep automated systems running, and maintaining an unemployed workforce.
A world that is faced with a gap in employment due to automation and robotics should look at how to fill in those employment holes. By training students and people that may not otherwise qualify as engineers (or who do not show an interest to be one) in the more basic skills of repairing, troubleshooting, and servicing the automated equipment that will rule future production, the world may be able to turn the tide on the future employment gap.
Short of an imagined future utopia where the average person gets to reap the rewards of automation without work, the world needs to be ready to source human capital where it can be best used. By creating and training technicians, we may be able to offset the potential future employment gap while giving workers meaningful jobs. If we start teaching high schoolers electrical theory, AND gates, NOR gates, series circuits, etc. then we may have more people that can transition into semi-technical fields without a hitch. It sure beats the alternative of high unemployment. Let’s face it, the automation utopia idea will probably never pan out. So, the time is now to prepare for the inevitable future.
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Christina Kitova Twitter @CarticulusMedia Image: Videoblocks.com