The Future of Work in Asia and Beyond

A Technological Revolution or Evolution?

Alan R. Nankervis, Julia Connell, John Burgess

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780429752377
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

The Future of Work in Asia and Beyond presents the findings and associated implications arising from a collaborative research study conducted on the potential impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR – or Industry 4.0) on the labour markets, occupations and associated future workforce competencies and skills across ten countries.

The 4IR concerns the digital transformation in society and business – an interface between technologies in the physical, digital and biological disciplines. The book explores many related issues: the nature of the 4IR, as well as demographic, generational and socio-cultural issues, economic and political perspectives, public and private sector similarities and differences, business strategy and managerial implications, human resource management/planning strategies, policies and practices, industry innovations, 'best practice' cases and comparative country studies. Chapters are based on a framework which combines labour market and multiple stakeholder theories. Issues are explored through the perceptions of organisational managers based in Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nepal, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand to provide an analysis of organisational, industry and government preparedness for the 4IR.

This book is recommended reading for anyone wanting to gain an understanding of the 4IR and a range of related challenges and issues, as well as suggested strategies for governments, education and industry that are necessary to address them.

Part 1

The context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

1 Meeting the workforce challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Alan R. Nankervis, Julia Connell, John Burgess and Alan Montague

Introduction

‘History tells us that anxiety tends to accompany rapid technological change, especially when technology takes the form of capital which threatens people’s jobs’ (Citigroup, 2019). Much has been made of questions such as: will a robot steal your job (Waldrop, 2018) or will a robot be your boss (Kruse, 2018). Others have indicated that artificial and machine intelligence still do not match the full range of human abilities, and to date few companies have reportedly deployed these technologies at scale outside of the technology sector, as they are uncertain about the return on investment (McKinsey Global Institute, 2017). This chapter introduces the broad workforce issues and challenges associated with current and future developments and applications in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and machine learning technologies. It also provides an introduction and overview of the book. Subsequent chapters will further explore these challenges and their impacts on the workforces of a wide range of countries in the Asia Pacific region and beyond. Many writers have envisaged a radically changing business landscape with consequent transformations in people management strategies. Thus far there has been considerable debate about the nature of what has been referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) or Industry 4.0. The term ‘4IR’ will be used throughout this book for consistency.

The 4IR is broadly characterised ‘by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, impacting all disciplines, economies and industries, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human’ (Schwab, 2016, webpage). Some authors have suggested that it is a natural ‘fourth’ stage in the evolution of new technologies and their effects on workplaces, jobs and associated skills and capacities; whilst others (for example, Williams, in O’Neill, 2017b; Chalmers, in Adams, 2017) argue that that it represents an all-encompassing revolutionary change which is totally dissimilar to all previous industrial revolutions. Chalmers (in Adams, 2017) argued that we are witnessing an industrial revolution phase that will have the ‘biggest and most profound’ impact ever on the work of humans, suggesting that every single occupation will be altered in one way or another, and although not every job will be totally supplanted, all workers and their managers will need to adapt. Even though the rise of the 4IR has the potential to become a driving force for social and economic growth, it will also simultaneously transform the patterns of production, consumption and employment, resulting in broader geopolitical and socio-economic changes in both developed and emerging economies (Ayentimi & Burgess, 2018).

Chalmers (in Adams, 2017, webpage) suggested that the jobs that will change most radically ‘include accounting, some legal work, insurance, insurance underwriters, bank tellers, taxi drivers, truck drivers, retail and some medical’ positions. Further enhancements in artificial intelligence will mean that various forms of robots replace more human job roles, with profound advances evident in automation, computers, research, medicine and legal services (Chalmers, in Adams, 2017; Williams, in O’Neill, 2017a). Other observers have highlighted the potential job losses and income polarisation associated with digitalisation. For example, Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2014) maintain that the ‘computer revolution’ has huge potential for disrupting labour markets and reducing labour costs. In addition to replacing and/or augmenting labour, the 4IR is already beginning to mimic human thinking. Romero et al. (2016: 1) propose that, in smart factories, ‘operators 4.0’ will be able to create trusting and interaction-based relationships between themselves and machines’. Given the ever-increasing scope and pace of such new technologies, changes will be significant and relatively unpredictable. Peters (2017: 2) proposes that if ‘the Industrial Revolution was the First Machine Age, and Electricity the Second, then Electronics was the Third, and the Internet is the platform for the Fourth’. Therefore, is the 4IR destined to leave its forerunners in the shade (WEF, 2016a) with never-ending or ‘perpetual’ and revolutionary change taking place?

Given the turbulence that the 4IR is inducing in a rapidly evolving labour market (WEF, 2016b), the capacity to forecast and plan to meet future skill needs and formulate associated job requirements is a huge challenge. The short, and longer-term impacts of these new technologies and mindsets on employment is progressively becoming a critical issue for governments, businesses, educational institutions and individual workers (Scarpetta, 2017). The World Bank Report (2019) stresses the need for human capital investment as those people with higher levels of human capital adapt faster to technological change – a critical issue for the future of work – indicating that humans and machines will need to work in harmony together. It has been claimed that one in ten jobs have the potential to be automated (Arnold et al., 2018). A Cedefop (2019: 9) briefing report maintains that these technologies may transform rather than destroy jobs, especially those that demand worker autonomy, planning, team-work, communication and customer-service skills which are expected to be more resistant to full automatisation. As a result, a key question concerns the impact of the 4IR, namely whether it will lead to mainly positive workplace, jobs and skills outcomes (WEF, 2016b).

The challenges of 4IR technologies

4IR technologies employ software that enables various devices, services and machines, robots, driverless vehicles, virtual personal assistants and more to learn and acquire knowledge like humans (O’Neill, 2017a, 2017b). ‘The rate of learning is going to be exponential’ and swift, which contrasts with human learning which is slow and painstaking at times (Walsh, in O’Neill, 2017b). They differ from other information technical systems (ITS) as they can be intuitive and perform complex tasks without any coding undertaken by human or manual input to boost their performance. The Price Waterhouse Coopers Workforce of the Future Report (2018: 8) suggests that there are three levels of AI:

i Assisted intelligence, widely available today, improves what people and organisations are already doing (for example, global navigation systems)

ii Augmented intelligence, which helps people and organisations to do things they could not otherwise do (for example, ride-sharing services technologies)

iii Autonomous intelligence, which is currently being developed for the future (for example, autonomous vehicles).

The future of work

Digital disruption, machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics are all part of the terminology surrounding the 4IR. In the realm of work, workplaces, jobs, careers and learning and development, the existing evidence and projections suggest profound change. The WEF (2016b) and the World Bank (2019) have both provided reports and predictions on how the 4IR will impact particular nations, industries and workplaces. Some of these predictions include:

1Some jobs will be displaced creating problems of unemployment and structural adjustment, especially with respect to low-skilled and repetitive jobs in the services and manufacturing sectors

2Work will be transformed through the way production is organised with respect to the interface between jobs and technology

3The nature of workplaces will be transformed through external work, increased contracting, casual and multiple ‘gigs’ as well as remote work

4Education and skill needs for new and future jobs will also change, involving changes in professions and occupations, together with the emergence of new sectors and professions

5Many (if not most) jobs will be augmented by technology, in various forms

6Skills and incomes will be polarised, leading to the intensification of emerging inequalities

7There is likely to be a large productivity dividend for employers from job displacement and job augmentation

8New jobs and professions will emerge, most likely in health services, energy generation and storage and logistics

9Careers will become less predictable, non-linear and potentially disruptive

10Work will become increasingly globalised through mechanisms such as increased offshoring and online work; and the mobility of high skilled workers will also increase, especially across the relatively newly incorporated ASEAN Economic Community.

What is likely to be the impact of the 4IR on global jobs? The World Bank (2019) identified both the fundamental changes, and features of the labour market that are not anticipated to change. First, the technology blurs the boundaries of organisations, and new global organisations can be created in a short time using web-based platforms that network service provision. Second, technology is shifting the demand for skills towards highly skilled technologically linked jobs. Third, industrial jobs have not disappeared through robotics; the major change is in the shift in manufacturing towards low cost labour economies from advanced economies. Finally, in emerging economies many jobs are informal, low paid and result in low productivity, and this is unlikely to change as a consequence of the 4IR.

The World Bank (2019) also identified the policy challenges for governments as investing in education and human capital; improving social protection and supporting fiscal sustainability, through effective taxation regimes that provide the support for investment in education and infrastructure. The scope of all of these challenges and the public policy issues is beyond the scope of this book. However, as the next section of the chapter explains, its focus is on managerial perceptions of these challenges and whether it is considered that governments are well-prepared to meet the challenges across the Asia Pacific region and beyond.

The purpose and scope of the book

Discussion concerning the 4IR to date has tended to be generalised and Western-centric (Cedefop, 2019; McKinsey Report, 2012; Quigley & Chalmers, 2016). Many of the cited studies comprise consultants’ reports that outline the changes that are taking place with respect to technology; discuss the implications of the applications across a multitude of criteria ( jobs, work, skills, income, wealth distribution or training); or examine issues linked to readiness, adjustment and transition, or organisational, industry and public policy (McKinsey Global Institute, 2017; Price Waterhouse Coopers, 2018). The purpose of this book is to examine a number of key issues associated with the 4IR through the lens of managers at c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Part 1 The context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
• Part 2 Country chapters
• Part 3 Fourth Industrial Revolution – The Asia Pacific and beyond
• Appendix
• Index