New technologies have the potential to create new jobs rather than destroy them, according to a report published by IZA World of Labour.
There has been a lot of discussion in the media lately about robots and automated systems replacing humans in the workplace, but these machines may actually be helping jobs to evolve by freeing up workers to make them more flexible.
Carl Plant, CEO of technology solutions expert bITjAM, believes that job roles are no longer one-track as employees are expected to have tertiary skills in other related areas. These secondary skills are often what make workers more employable over their less adaptable peers according to Plant.
Plant says:
“It has lowered the barriers to many jobs that used to be considered specialist. It’s thrown open the doors of careers that were previously only for the highly skilled, and freed workers from the boundaries of their job titles.
“Over the next ten years, rather than destroying specialists, IT will push these people to become more skilled, while allowing the rest of us to become more well-rounded. It’s not a revolution, it’s an evolution – it’s not forcing us to study IT, it’s allowing us to work in a wider range of roles using applications that need less study.”
Italian economist and professor of Economics Marco Vivarelli explains how these technological advances can actually benefit humans rather than creating mass redundancies.
Vivarelli argues that the responsibility for safeguarding jobs in the future lies with governments and policymakers, as they need to support research and development (R&D) investments into new products industries. High-tech sectors need to be nurtured and supported in order to foster competitiveness, economic growth and job creation.
Marco Vivarelli says:
“Innovation can create jobs, but all the efforts should be concentrated in the high-tech sectors; this is food for thought for European policymakers.”
Vivarelli believes that promoting these new products and industries will counteract most or all unemployment impacts caused by technological innovation.
Amie Filcher is an editorial assistant at HRreview.
