Changes are happening across the world at an alleviating speed. Globalization and digitalization are having a significant impact on the lives of people across the world. These changes are also influencing the societies and cultures. Education, distribution of wealth and the jobs are also highly sensitive to such changes. Disruption is no more considered a recluse because this is what can be called as a transformational era. With revolution come opportunities. Regional amalgamation, multilateral collaboration and multifaceted global interdependence have burgeoned the opportunities. The latest technologies are indeed game-changers, but they are also part of human lives. Devices and the internet are getting common by the day and AI is spreading its roots noiselessly. Blockchain along with similar technologies have gotten prevalent through societies and economies which have amplified human ability to stimulate sophisticated productivity growth, enhanced well-being, delivered better services and also countenances novel business models and inventive ways of working to emerge thus offering tractability to workers and employers.
However, there are challenges for the labor class. Skilled jobs for the middle class are highly bare to this intense transformation. An estimated 14% of the existing jobs are likely to vanish because of automation in the coming 20 years. About 32% of the jobs will change drastically once the individual tasks are automated.
Globalization has surpassed several communities and individuals. There has been a digital division that still exists, limiting new technologies to a few which has resulted in inequalities in various areas, including the work sector. There is a lack of uniformity in the work sector when it comes to benefiting from good jobs. Several are trapped in hazardous work conditions that offer almost no social protection and very less pay. A concerning thing is that the middle class technological developments have given rise to many low-quality and hazardous jobs. For instance, in many nations, non-standard workers stand 50% chances lesser to receive income support when they are out of work compared to the standard employees of a company. Moreover, the workers of countries that are less developed are likely less to participate in training compared to what skilled employees from developed countries would. Predictably, such changes result in anxiety about the future of jobs.
Growing disparities of income and prospects, insight of fiscal iniquitousness, distortions in cross-border rivalry, slowdown of world economy and even climatic changes are all a matter of concern. Disruption also stimulates mounting disgruntlement about the efficiency of systems in place. One of the recent surveys revealed that many people think that social benefits and public services are insufficient and hard to reach. 50% and more people say that they do not get the actual amount of the benefits that is given to them compared to the taxes they pay. 75% people believe that others get more than what they deserve. 3 in every 4 people say that the government should improve the quality of economic and social security that they are given.
It is significant that the people know and feel that they would be given proper support to look for better jobs and career opportunities in case they fail to cope with the digital era.
The future of jobs largely depends on the policy decisions made by the countries. It is the nature of these policies that would enable the workplaces and its employees would to harness the prospective of the unparalleled technological and digital change while handling the challenges that come along with it. This will then decide the success and failure of the jobs.
However, in certain policies, changes at the margin will not be enough and it may not be necessary to change the current policies. Carving the future of work requires a transition plan for a future that would work for everyone. Here it is significant that the workers get the required through while they are in the job transition phase through proper employment services, prevention and intervention. Countries should be focusing on having comprehensive adult learning strategies, especially for adults with low skills so that obsolescence and depreciation of skills are avoided and smooth flow of job transition takes place. Learning system for the adults would have to be fortified and altered so that all workers are offered opportunities to retrain through their career lives. Social protection for the employees should also be reformed so that workers belonging to non-standard forms of employment can get better coverage. It must also be taken into account that as jobs are evolving, the trend of long term employment is fading.
Policy makers should also focus on social dialogue and collective bargaining so together they can balance government efforts to make the labor markets malleable, inclusive and protected. With proper policies and institutions and along with the help of the government, the opportunities –the prospects that digitalization, globalization and longer lives will bring can be grabbed, while the risks can be lessened. It may not quite be impossible to design, develop and provide better employment strategies for better lives.
Would you like to read more about this topic? This book might interest you: Future of Jobs.