‘Workers need to be protected’
THE fear of losing jobs due to automation will not become reality, as innovation will continue to create jobs, according to World Bank Group senior director Michal Rutkowski. Still, nations should consider how to better protect workers in the changing work environment driven by technolog y advances, he said.
The notion that automation makes traditional jobs obsolete has always been a source of frustration for blue-collar workers. With the advancement of artificial intelligence and robotics, the fear now reaches even white-collar workers. Around 800 million global workers are expected to lose their jobs by 2030 due to robotic automation, according to a report last year from the McKinsey Global Institute.
Despite the circumstances, the World Bank senior director pinned his hopes on innovation.
“Automation reduces jobs in a ll sectors but innovation has a lways created jobs in new sectors t hat did not ex ist before automation, resulting in higher productiv it y and less physica l ef forts. Histor y tells us,” he said.
Rutkowski, who joined the World Bank in 1990, now serves as a senior director at the international organisation’s social protection and jobs division. He oversees the international organisation’s work in developing systems that protect the poor and vulnerable from crisis and shocks, and supporting private sector-led growth.
For white-collar workers, “We see the fears but we don’t [actually] see whitecollar groups losing their jobs. It’s rather the opposite. Educated people reinvent themselves and innovate other things successfully. Fear and reality are different,” the senior director said.
He cited journalists as an example – artificial intelligence is shaking up present-day journalism. Automated news is distributed without human supervision. Social media has quickly become a powerful form of publishing.
“[Still,] I believe in journa lism. To me, robots do not have the personal touch or customisation of argument to readers. Socia l media cannot be a substitute to journa lism as it does not have qualit y control,” he said.
“I rat her believe journa lists will reinvent themselves with some passion as socia l media changes the nature of journa lism,” he said.
Although t he fear of job reduction may not become rea lit y, nations should pay attention to protecting workers in the fast-changing work env ironment driven by technolog y advances.
“Because new digital platforms provide different labour arrangements much less regular and much less linked to social protection, we need to start to think about how to provide social protection for those people,” Rutkowski said, referring to employment contracts, well-targeted minimum income and social insurance mechanism.
In South Korea, the number of nonregular workers – temporary, part-time and freelance – stood at 6.6 million, accounting for 33 per cent of the nation’s total employment, according to government data released in August. Non-regular workers earned nearly half as much as regular workers on average, with much less job-related insurance.
“[So far, South] Korea doesn’t have the best interest in tr ying to protect all ways of providing social protections like you see in some European countries. So, [South] Korea is a latecomer in social protection and its system of employment benefits are relatively new.”
However, this can provide opportunities, as South Korea can be more open to experimenting new systems and leapfrog other nations by avoiding mistakes they made, he added.
In the era of growing automation and technology advances, human capital investment is very important to reduce inequality in the labour market, he said.
“Investment in human capital is the best way of benefiting from automation and of getting jobs which are well paid because winners will be those who have higher skills in the digital era,” he said.