Pandemic speeds shift to robot workers
ZURICH: Robots will destroy 85 million jobs at midsized to large businesses during the next five years as the Covid19 pandemic accelerates workplace changes likely to exaggerate inequalities, a World Economic Forum (WEF) study has found.
Surveys of nearly 300 global companies found four out of five business executives were accelerating plans to digitise work and deploy new technologies, undoing employment gains made since the 200708 financial crisis.
‘‘Covid19 has accelerated the arrival of the future of work,’’ WEF managing director Saadia Zahidi said.
Nearly half of workers set to remain in their roles over the next five years would need to learn new skills and by 2025, employers would divide work between humans and machines equally, the study found.
Overall, job creation is slowing and job destruction is accelerating as companies around the world use technology rather than people for data entry, accounting and administration duties.
The good news is that more than 97 million jobs would emerge across the care economy, in tech industries such as artificial intelligence (AI) and in content creation, the Genevabased WEF said.
‘‘The tasks where humans are set to retain their comparative advantage include managing, advising, decisionmaking, reasoning, communicating and interacting,’’ it said.
Demand would rise for workers who could fill green economy jobs, cuttingedge data and AI functions, and new roles in engineering, cloud computing and product development.
About 43% of businesses surveyed were set to reduce their workforce due to technology integration; 41% planned to expand their use of contractors; and 34% envisioned expanding their workforce due to technology integration, the survey found. — Reuters