Is technology an unmixed boon?    

The common perception that increasing growth should ideally accompany increased job opportunities is gradually losing ground. The World Economic Forum (WEF) reports, the global economy is already under pressure with growth required to generate adequate employment as jobs are disappearing with growth. With technology being the main driver to bolster economic growth, development is increasingly inclined towards automation. 

The world has been experiencing a technology boom that reduces the role of humans in the production and marketing processes. The said report suggests that the world will lose about 5,000,000 jobs this way either to robots or automation as a result of a drastic change in the work methods caused by artificial intelligence. Robots will take over jobs that require narrow skills such as administration or clerical work as employers start looking for core competencies such as critical thinking, emotional reasoning and active listening in their employees. In other words, employers will look for a different set of skills from their workers in the years to come.

The process has already started with mobile phones and internet. With further spread of technology, mobile internet and cloud technology have expanded and are gradually helping more sectors of socio-economic affairs. Not everyone will be impacted equally but some jobs will be redundant including those where manual or semi-automated working systems function. According to the report, more than 7.0 million redundancies will occur by 2021, mainly in management and administration, particularly in healthcare and construction sectors. Apart from job redundancies, the rise of the robots, that is, man versus machine fight as some put, will affect gender balance or parity at work places. Women are predicted to be more vulnerable to job losses, which will upset the gender equality drive across the world. Although women are in sectors such as engineering, architecture, IT, software that will generate new employment, five women will lose their jobs against creation of one new employment. Men are comparatively less vulnerable and will see three jobs lost for every one gained.

The world is entering a highly disruptive phase of technological change that pose one of five big global risks highlighted at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. Against the backdrop of fast occurring technological changes the world is faced with newer challenges as it will have more mouths to feed with too few jobs. The general feeling is that increasing globalisation is responsible for deteriorating job prospects. But there is a bigger challenge that lies ahead for labour markets worldwide which is managing technological change.

Truly, governments around the world are now required to work out policy formulations so that the increasing work force is bedecked with enhanced competencies to meet the changing working methods in different sectors and create job opportunities to as many young people as possible. The strategies should be globalised and capacities be brought on a par. Fourth industrial revolution that the world aims at involves a phenomenon of increased use of robots and artificial intelligence in all aspects of economy.

This is a future panoramic view likely to be a cause for concerns for nations, particularly the developing ones. However, there could be no plausible argument against technological progress and advancement in technology cannot and should not be arrested for the sake of retaining employment at the expense of technological growth. It is not only unwelcome but also undesirable. WEF founder Klaus Schwab rightly said, "Without urgent and targeted action today to manage the near-term transition and build a workforce with future proof skills, governments will have to cope with ever-growing unemployment and inequality, and businesses with a shrinking consumer base."

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