Notwithstanding job losses suffered due to new technological advances, new jobs are also being created
The world is being turned on its head and this is a good thing, according to Dr Colin Thakur, the global expert who put the E into electronic voting. Durban University of Technology’s Dr Thakur, is the BankSeta Research Chair in Digitisation, Director of the National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa (NEMISA), KwaZulu-Natal and a national authority on Big Data.
Speaking at the USAf conference on 3 October, Dr Thakur and Ms Amy Thornton, Researcher at the Development Policy Research Unit at the University of Cape Town (UCT), outlined the changed and changing world of work and technology. Dispelling potential doom and gloom scenarios about the job loss carnage that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is leaving in its wake (this year, the banking sector laid off thousands of workers whose jobs had become obsolete), both academics talked about job shifts and job creation alongside job extinction.
Some sectors are more affected than others
A critical aspect of Ms Thornton’s research showed that the sector most affected was “the missing middle” – those workers whose job skills had been supplanted by technology (Sales, Office Administration, Production etc.). While admitting that job losses would not be evenly spread across sectors, Ms Thornton underlined that against the predicted 75 million jobs losses to 4IR technologies at the biggest firms in the world, CEOs also predicted a gain of 133m – so a net gain of about 15 million (World Economic Forum, 2018).
Caption: Future employers will seek a mix of technological and human skills found in active listeners, analytical and critical thinkers and collaborators, said Ms Amy Thornton, Researcher in the University of Cape Town’s Development Policy Research Unit.
She also admitted that the jobs of the future would be differently configured as industry, in its emphasis on combined technological and human skills, would increasingly seek critical thinkers, active listeners, analytical thinkers and collaborators.
Dr Thakur said the personal computer in the 1980s destroyed an estimated 3,5-million jobs in America (among them, typists), but it also created 19-million new jobs across the economy.
That is why, he said, he was upbeat about the inevitability of the disruption caused by 4IR in the labour market. He said this change needed to be harnessed and embraced. He also said he felt that universities had to anticipate and meet changing market demands. “The area that 4IR covers – high speed internet, big data, the internet of things, cloud technology and artificial intelligence among them – is too broad. There is never going to be a bachelor of 4IR degree.” Because the breadth and range of topics was too wide, Dr Thakur said each area had to be seen separately. That was where the challenge lay for universities.
Caption: Dr Surendra Colin Thakur, Director: NEMISA KwaZulu-Natal e-Skills Lab at the Durban University of Technology, is adamant that the change being ushered in by 4IR must be harnessed and embraced. “It requires a shift in thinking.”
He went on to say that job extinction through retrenchments occurred when the industry no longer required a specific functionality – through automation or obsolescence. This had far a reaching impact on society, reducing the tax base and impacting the economy. “White-collar retrenchment reduces downstream employment and affects individuals and families psychologically and physiologically,” Dr Thakur said.
He was, however, at pains to point out that while industry was shedding some jobs, new ones were being created. In September (2019) alone, he found 61 155 advertised jobs attributable to 4IR. Jobs existed for data scientists, in artificial intelligence, in cloud computing, robot programming and the Internet of Things. What he felt was needed was a shift in thinking.
Job sharing and re-skilling are the options to explore, Dr Thakur argues
He presented, as an option, the concept of job sharing, where two people, or more, could share the same job with the requisite adjustment in remuneration and time off. Older people, he said, who were entrepreneurial but who wanted the parachute of a pension and were happier with a smaller income, found the idea of less work for less money but more time appealing. Job shifting – which he described as the gradual shift in job description through automation – led to disruptive change. He recommended using reskilling to mitigate job extinction, and retraining to keep workers in the same roles rather than fundamentally changing their jobs.
One of the major themes that emerged across the board at the USAf conference was the fact that universities were no longer just catering for the 18-24 year old student. In this fluid, ever changing technological world where new information and knowledge is updating at a rapid pace, Lifelong Learning is the way of the future.
Said Dr Thakur: “I never thought YouTube was useful until I wanted to clean a kiwi fruit. I got a micro lesson after which I was able to perfectly clean and peel a kiwi fruit.” He quoted a September 2019 IBM report: “In the next three years, an estimated 120 million workers in the world’s 12 largest economies will need to be retrained or reskilled as a result of AI and automation.” He added that America, for example, needed 250 00 more data scientists than it produced.
Referring to this statistic during a discussion session, Mr Phillip Bester, from the University of South Africa’s Finance Department, asked why, if – for example – motor manufacturing companies needed robotics specialists, more electronics courses were not offered at universities. “We need to close the gap between us and those industries to make us more relevant in the job market,” he said.
Dr Thakur, pointing out that electronics was offered at a select number of South African universities, said he thought that the courses offered at undergraduate level were sufficient preparation without departments devoting entirely to electronics.
Mr Simon Trupp, Co-CEO of Ikusasa Student Financial Aid Programme, (ISFAP) said: “Universities do not optimise the sharing of facilities and learnings. We need to create channels that encourage this.” If, by way of example, IBM said 120million people needed retraining, universities needed to engage and find ways of packaging those needs.
Chief Researcher at the University of the Free State’s Centre for Teaching and Learning, Dr Sonja Loots, commented that there were over 6000 Information and Communications Technology (ICT) graduates in the sector across the whole of South Africa in 2016. She asked why students would go to university to study ICT when they could get a free education from IBM, or do a course with Google. “What is the pull factor of universities when there are free options? How can we make our universities attractive for them?” Delegates nodded in agreement, but did not respond.
Dr Thakur commented that funding partnerships with the private sector was needed. He said “We need to start thinking synergy, to start thinking collectively. We need a collaborative approach to funding.”
Caption: If students have an option to pursue ICT studies freely online, universities are under increased pressure to make themselves even more attractive by demonstrating a credible pull factor, Dr Sonja Loots, Chief Researcher at the University of the Free State’s Centre for Teaching and Learning, cautioned.
Professor Bawa, USAf’s CEO, said that the National Research Foundation and DUT were already in talks to galvanise partnerships. “Subsidies at present go to institutions. We are looking at doctoral training centres where there is co-teaching, co-supervision, while ensuring that the students still belong to their university.”
The Gig Economy has changed the parameters of the workplace
Also explored at the conference was the new Gig Economy, which was seeing workers choosing alternative work arrangements as independent contractors or office temps. Researcher Amy Thornton said: “The Gig Economy, which falls under the precarious work category, no longer provides the standard employment relationship that is still a traditional space for our unions.”
During the ensuing debates, Professor Ahmed Bawa, said the Gig Economy had huge potential for getting people involved in multiple projects. There were pitfalls, however, like a lack of pensions or health care insurance for young people. Dr Thakur said fears that the Gig economy created temporary employment and long-term poverty “has not happened”. “Companies understand the job mobility of the youth – in my youth I changed jobs four times. In the Gig economy workers learn people skills, technology, vertical skills.” Professor Bawa said, however, that it was necessary to create a policy framework for the Gig economy. “We don’t want workers to find themselves at 45, having had a great life but with no money going forward. We have to have a framework for such things as pension, health care, retirement.”
Caption: South Africa needs to create a policy framework that will regulate the Gig Economy, Prof Ahmed Bawa, Chief Executive at USAf, stated. “We don’t want workers to find themselves at 45, having had a great life but with no money going forward. We have to have a framework for such things as pension, health care, retirement.
Let’s re-train and collaborate in finding solutions to societal problems
Retrenchments and job losses due to obsolescence need not have a negative outcome, Dr Thakur said he believed. “Let’s take those workers retrenched from the financial services sector and cross-train them as mentors and consultants for municipalities who do not achieve an unqualified or clean audit.” He also talked about the need for a cross pollination of disciplines, citing an example on how he had worked with a cancer doctor to develop a breathalyser test to detect cancer. “I knew nothing about cancer; he knew nothing about data. But together we came up with a workable solution. Collaboration is the way of the future.”
Unequivocal was the fact that people would need to be proficient with technology. Said Ms Thornton: “What we do now is very important for the future. We need to start preparing. How? For a start, Government needs to invest in new job creating sectors like health, education and the green economy.” On the analytics front, she listed reading, comprehension, critical thinking and complex problem solving skills as crucial. Furthermore, soft skills like active listening and collaborative abilities were as important.
“Of course, technological skills like coding, mathematics, technological proficiency are a must,” Ms Thornton told delegates. She added, however, that it would be hard to provide a list of new occupations as these might change. “The goal is to be able to move with the change.”
Mr Ashley Francis, Executive Director, Finance at the University of Cape Town (UCT) said there were fears about job security when his finance department was digitised to become paperless.
Caption: Gone are the days when business units were too specialised, said Mr Ashley Francis, Executive Director: Finance at the University of Cape Town. “Now a Finance Department needs people with other skills, like marketing.” Even better, other delegates felt that finance specialists of the future need to skill themselves in social skills such as marketing and communication, and vice versa.
“We may have lost mundane jobs, but we’re also creating new jobs. Traditionally, I’ve always looked at finance people for the finance department. Now we need people who have other skills, like marketing.” Mr Francis said the greatest problem was change management, dealing with people’s expectations and fears.
Interdisciplinary training is the way for the future
Professor Bawa said there had to be a convergence of science and humanities in the face of 4IR. “You have to bring other people into your programmes if you want to halt what Amy has shown us is the whittling away of that missing middle.” Dr Engela Van Staden, Free State University Deputy Vice-Rector: Academic, agreed that fears around job losses had to be factored in, and managed, both on a personal level and with the unions.
Ms Thornton said: “Interdisciplinary training creates adaptability through exposure to different types of subjects. Blended learning is the way of the future. Scientists need soft skills like learning how to manage people. Humanities students need technology skills.” Dr Van Staden said she wondered why universities were still training accountants if they were to be replaced by computers.
Mr Dhaya Naidoo: Executive Officer and Chief Information Officer at the Tshwane University of Technology cautioned: “We need to look back at major changes that have happened in the past and stay away from knee jerk reactions. Foundational knowledge is still non negotiable. Accountancy has been automated for 20 years. Accountants now need to express opinion on financial transactions.” To fill the gap in Ms Thornton’s U-shape, missing middle graph, he said focus needed to be given to reading, writing and arithmetic.
Professor Elsabe Schoeman from the University of Pretoria’s Law Faculty, said much work needed to be done around the regulation of the new technology. Professor Bawa shared how, at a Barcelona conference on ethics, science fiction writers were hired to provide imagined possible future scenarios.
Genius, everyone agreed, would come from an interdisciplinary approach going forward, and not from compartmentalising disciplines.
At least five sessions at the National Higher Education Conference were devoted to changing technologies; the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and how universities need to adapt, stay relevant and appropriately and adequately prepare students for the future. USAf will share more of what transpired in the other sessions and more, over the next few weeks.
Written by Charmain Naidoo, an independent writer commissioned by Universities South Africa.
