‘No need to fear digital age and automation’
If the public and private sector can learn to trust each other and join hands, the fourth industrial revolution need not be a threat to the country’s future job market or economy.
This was the advice from Nelson Mandela University economist Professor Charles Wait, speaking to members of the Graaff-Reinet Chamber of Commerce at a networking event held on Monday evening.
Wait encouraged business leaders not to fear the fourth industrial revolution.
“The revolution is one, we are told, in which we shall see more and more computer programmes doing what people are now doing,” Wait said.
“This raises our fears about unemployment – [but] when we changed from ox-wagons to lorries, we discharged two of the three essential persons who operated an ox wagon [and] created a 66% unemployment rate.
“What if that scared us from switching to lorries?”
Skills training would be the key factor of navigating the shift with minimal job losses.
“SA’s problem in this matter is mainly one of retraining the two persons who are no longer needed to operate an ox wagon to become motor mechanics or auto electricians,” he said.
“I must still find a report on the SA economy which does not emphasise the need for skills training and which does not compare our educational system with educational systems where provision is made for skills training that starts at an early stage.”
Pointing to the success of the Mercedes-Benz factory in Stuttgart which he visited recently, he said: “Despite a body shop where you only see robot arms swinging the body parts of cars around and assembling these parts, and where small automated trolleys deliver parts to the different assembly points, the factory still employs 35,000 people.”
Wait emphasised the need for the public and private sectors to collaborate.
“While the fourth industrial revolution is about the digital age and automation, Capitalism 4 is about a symbiotic relationship between government and the private sector.
“A symbiotic relationship can only work in an atmosphere of mutual trust and transparency.”
Ethical governance would be crucial to building this trust.
“Evidence at the state capture commission confirms what we heard and read over a long time about how much milk was spilled from the South African economy.
“The future is not only about acting against the perpetrators of the past.
“The more difficult aspect is how to ensure ethical behaviour over as broad a front as possible – a task that starts in the home, the school, the church, the NGO and wherever people interact with other people or with material things.”
With more ethical practices, the country’s recession could become a thing of the past – with long-term sustainability.
“The light switch [or hope] we are looking for is the one that would keep the lights on over the long term.
“This switch is mounted in a few places, [including] a return to a value-driven society [where] effective remedial action is taken [when ethics are neglected].”