Human Futures September 2019 | Page 48

BOOK REVIEW by Leopold Mureithi Professor of Economics - University of Nairobi “The Future of Jobs Report 2018” from the World Economic Forum migration restrictions, and new generation mind-set. As a result of the combination and permutation of these forces, there are complex feedback loops between new technology, jobs and skills. New technologies can drive business growth, job creation and demand for specialist skills but they can also displace entire roles when certain tasks become obsolete or automated. Skills gaps -- both among workers and among the leadership of organizations -- can speed up the trends towards automation in some cases but can also pose barriers to the adoption of new technologies and therefore impede business growth (p. 7). The book maps “the scale of occupational change underway” by “documenting examples of stable, new and redundant roles [in] all industries” (p. 9). From this we learn (by way of illustration) that managers, teachers, and logisticians will continue to be needed; data scientists, process automation specialists, and digital marketers will achieve new heights; and clerks, accountants and drivers will face oblivion. This is the palpable reality that all will have to prepare for. Historical experience of the gross effect of technology on employment is positive. More jobs get created as technology develops, but very different types of jobs. It is the structure, not the quantity of jobs, which raises issues of human adjustment to take advantage of the new situation. Against this backdrop, the Centre for the New Economy and Society of the World Economic Forum (WEF) issued an insight report on the current state of job types available in 2018 and prognostic projections to 2022. One could reckon that the period covered was too short for meaningful workforce transformation to occur. In a sense, yes, because of the complicated institutional factors at play “such as ease of commercialization, public adoption of new technologies and existing labour laws” (p. 7). But the match of technology -- driven as it is by considerations of reduction in cost of production, accuracy, and efficiency – will continue and be felt even in the short term. Labour market disruption is a foregone conclusion. 48 HUMAN FUTURES The research for the publication of the 147- page book adopted polling and trend analysis methodologies: “313 unique responses by global companies from a wide range of industry sectors, collectively representing more than 15 million employees.” (p. 5) and grouped into 12 clusters (p. 31). WEF retained three specialists, Till Alexander Leopold, Vesselina Stefanova Ratcheva, and Saadia Zahidi in addition to teaming up with Linkedin (p. 19). Their analyses are thorough at industry (pp. 42-65) and at country/region levels (pp. 68-125). Their findings highlight the forces likely to affect the future of business and work. Positive ones are identified as new technology, big data, mobile internet, artificial intelligence, cloud-computing, economic growth, expanding influence of developing technologies, education expansion, new energy sources, and the expanding middle classes. Negative factors include economic protectionism, cybercrime, erratic government policies, climate change, ageing population, An interesting finding is the awareness of the need to reskill: “by 2022, no less than 54% of all employees will require significant reskilling and upskilling. Of these, about 35% are expected to require additional training of up to six months, 9% will require reskilling lasting six to 12 months, while 10% will require additional skills training of more than a year.” p. 11. This calls for proactive preparation by educators, individual workers, government, businesses, and labour unions “partnering … to reshape school and college curricula.” (p. 14). Acknowledging that “forecasts of the extent of structural change across global labour markets depend on taking into consideration the time horizon” (p. 3), WEF chose to limit themselves to five years for their analysis, possibly guided by the fact that accuracy of forecast tends to fall as the time horizon increases due to volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). Consequently, “this report -- and future editions -- aim to provide a (rolling) five-year outlook” (p. 3). These small bites can be useful guides to a probable (likely) future, a kind of augmented present. Are other futures possible? Yes, and a close relative is a set of plausible (credible) futures; also a preferred future of stakeholders eager to achieve a humane future; to say nothing of what is really achieved, with possible wildcard surprises, disruptors, and other erstwhile unthought-of futures. So, the worldview adopted by WEF is just one of the many possible futures. But, because of their short-term rolling approach, they might reach a future, say 2050, which might not be easily foreseeable – in terms of jobs and skills - at present. Maybe at that time someone could do some back-casting and retrospectively wonder how we got there. Though WEF postulates a complementary stance between technology and labour (pp. 8, 11, 12), they acknowledge that “popular discourse is often fixated on technology that substitutes for humans” (p. 11). Evidence is accumulating that robots are substituting labour, at the margin, as cost of robots falls relative to labour inputs. So, it is entirely possible that the long term relationship between automation and labour is an inverted U-curve, such that Jim Dator’s notion of a full unemployment state is plausible. Fortunately, WEF pointed a way forward to avoid getting caught unawares by supporting: social safety nets to better support those who may need support to adjust to the new labour market. This could be achieved through reforming and extending existing social protection schemes, or through moving to a wholly new model such as the idea of basic income and basic services. Even in full unemployment, human creativity is such that people will still find useful things to do, even if it is only to kill boredom. The futures of the future of work (FFOW) is work in progress. All in all, this WEF’s Future of Jobs Report 2018 is a sound contribution to the continuing search for the future of work, and decent one at that. HUMAN FUTURES 49