A leading economist has warned of another potential jobs ‘disrupter’ in South Africa- namely the rise of technology.<\/p>\n
Cees Bruggemans of Bruggemans & Associates said in a note that we tend to think of global shocks and their recession consequences, and excessive domestic wage demands as the big threats to jobs.<\/p>\n
“But a bigger threat to our employment by far might be structural and ongoing by way of technological disruption, a global reality and not bypassing us.<\/p>\n
“This reality is of course of all times, but especially today, with technical change so rapid, automating work processes, destroying the more mundane jobs, and indeed anything that can be digitalised,” Bruggemans said.<\/p>\n
These threats exist across all jobs, he warned, except in the public sector where different rules apply – but for how long?<\/p>\n
The economist’s sentiment echoes that of\u00a0South African billionaire Johann Rupert, whoe also recently warned that the country has to prepare for more civil unrest with technology advances set to cost more jobs and fuel unemployment.<\/p>\n
Bruggemans said that manufacturing jobs as a share total employment peaked long ago.<\/p>\n
“Today, across the world, computerization is accelerating automation, also across our industry, and SA is no exception, with in our case both the share of industry output in GDP and the share of manufacturing jobs in the total steadily falling.<\/p>\n
“Automation extends deep across many sectors, including retailing and finance, with reports of banks wanting to shrink their branch space by half in quick time as their digitalization proceeds.”<\/p>\n
The economist said that any jobs involving repetitive actions acquiring little human judgement are in danger of being displaced ‘shortly’ by less costly, more productive, more pliable machines.<\/p>\n
“Increasingly, only jobs that demand thinking input, whether creative or managerial, will likely survive. At least for the present,” he said.<\/p>\n
The likes of gardeners car guards and security guards are safe for now.<\/p>\n
“But on the work floor, in offices, in retailing & forecourts, anything that doesn’t really requiring thinking processes is in a race with time,” Bruggemans said.<\/p>\n
Prepare for civil unrest in South Africa because of robots<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Cheaper, better robots are coming for your job<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n