Letters to the Editor: Saving jobs in the digital world

Beaven Dhliwayo 

It is becoming more apparent that today’s jobs will be replaced by machines.

Many people are wondering if robots can do their jobs at a time the world economy is already facing major employment crisis.

In the recent past, the discussion about technology in the future of work has tended to centre on the issues of job creation and destruction and the need for reskilling.

Technology is fast evolving, at the same time connecting the digital world with the physical one, resulting in new innovations such as artificial intelligence and self-driving cars.

Zimbabwe should not be left behind and should equip the citizenry with the knowledge and skills to respond to systematic shifts that will affect the future of work.

The majority of workers and new graduates in Zimbabwe are not seeing automation coming soon, but if they are not prepared they will be caught unaware and in a painful way. 

A recent study by the World Economic Forum (WEF), titled “Future of Jobs” forecasts that at least five million jobs will be lost before 2020, citing artificial intelligence, robotics and nanotechnology as some of the factors that will replace the need for human workers.

The country is therefore not spared from these transformative economic, social and environmental challenges of Globalisation 4.0, hence it has never been more important to invest in people.

A new report titled “The changing nature of work and skills in the digital age”, written by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, finds that digital technologies do not only create and destroy jobs, they also change the task that people perform on the job, and how they do it.

Most jobs that have expanded over the past seven years combine digital skills with above-average social interaction, such as with external clients or within a team.

The increasing use of computers has standardised work procedures in some jobs, while reducing the need for direct social interaction in some sectors, such as in financial intermediation or real estate.

According to the study, over the next decade, workers will be required to have more complex skills sets requiring problem-solving abilities, strong non-cognitive skills such as social, communication and interpretative skills and at least a basic knowledge of Information Communication Technologies (ICT).

This implies that lack of digital skills may prevent many of the country’s workers and companies from fully profiting from the opportunities emerging in the digital economy.

A good example is MultiChoice, Africa’s leading entertainment company, headquartered in South Africa which announced that up to 2 194 of its employees are in danger of losing their jobs as plans a restructuring of the company’s customer service model. 

The pay-TV operator in September this year asked its employees to reapply for their positions with as many jobs set to be potentially affected.

The company, with a subscriber base of more than 15-million, argued that it would cut jobs at its call and walk-in centres, in response to evolving customer behaviour as subscribers opt for digital platforms instead of telephone or walk-in services. 

 Senior Economist at the ILO Research Department, Uma Rani, noted that countries should not ignore these disruptive effects of new technologies because technology-induced job losses are often immediate while it takes time for new jobs to be created.

It thus become imperative for the country to start monitoring the tasks that are changing as a result of automation because ignoring the digital world will make Zimbabwe to be left out of the world economy.

The WFP estimates that 65 percent of children enrolling for primary education will find themselves in occupations that does not exist today.

Zimbabwe will need to prepare its populations as the country is also standing on the brink of a technological revolution.

The WEF also notes that the technological advances will create 2.1 million jobs. 

But the manual and clerical workers who find themselves out of work are unlikely to have the required skills to compete for the new roles. 

Most new jobs will be in more specialised areas such as computing, mathematics, architecture and engineering.

Government together with employers in every sector have the mandate to retrain and re-skill workers to avoid a crisis. This is important because, while new jobs destroy old jobs, new jobs are not necessarily being created in the same areas, sectors and occupations. 

To create jobs, the government needs to think carefully about reindustrialisation, both to grow the economy and reskill its workforce for jobs in an automated environment.

Digitisation of the economy can immensely contribute to the country’s growth and realisation of the Second Republic’s vision for the country to attain an Upper Middle Income economy status by 2030.

There should be continuous collective participation among all stakeholders in the country to seek solutions to overcome challenges such as economic inequality, rising unemployment and a growing youth population unaware of what occupations the future will present to them.

Without proper measures taken today, to manage the near-term transition and build a workforce with future-proof skills, Zimbabwe will have to endure with ever-growing unemployment and inequality, couple by businesses with a shrinking consumer base.

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