Automation threat hangs over regions
Rural New Zealand will be hit hard by a wave of automation predicted to wipe away as many as 31 per cent of existing jobs by 2036.
Cities will fare better, a new report on the future of work forecasts, but that could force country dwellers to migrate to cities such as Auckland and Wellington in search of work.
Gareth Kiernan of Infometrics, who unveiled the Megatrends report at the Industry Training Federation conference at Te Papa in Wellington yesterday, said lower-skilled workers’ jobs were most at risk.
And, he said: ‘‘The likelihood that fewer new jobs will be created in provincial areas will require careful management from government to maintain the economic viability of these regions over the medium term.’’
Kiernan said high employment and a rising minimum wage could hasten automation’s adoption in the near term.
While there are differences between Infometrics’ predictions for job losses in different regions, the biggest regional disparities were likely to be in terms of where new jobs were created, he said.
‘‘The fortunes of provincial and rural economies are most at risk.’’
That called for careful government planning, rather than leaving it to the market and to individuals.
‘‘Experiences from the economic reforms of the 1980s suggest that the Government has an important role to play in mitigating the effects of rapid change, with lower-skilled workers looking particularly vulnerable and having the most to gain from retraining,’’ Kiernan said.
He acknowledged the forecast was only one of a range of possibilities Infometrics had modelled.
‘‘There is a relatively high degree of uncertainty. Although we have estimated that 31 per cent of jobs nationally are at high risk of automation during the next 20 years, the range of estimated outcomes lies between 29 per cent and 39 per cent,’’ Kiernan said.
‘‘At a local authority level, the range varies between 26 per cent of jobs in Wellington City up to 50 per cent of jobs in Tasman District.’’
The speed at which different areas will be affected varied. The ‘‘algorithm wave’’ threatened professional and scientific jobs in the near future, and would hit cities like Wellington hard.
Robotic automation, known as the ‘‘autonomy wave’’ threatened manual jobs, and was likely to bite later.
‘‘Mackenzie District has a relatively low proportion of jobs at risk of automation in the near term from the algorithm wave. Only Kaiko¯ ura and Westland are likely to have fewer jobs affected by automation in the next six years,’’ Kiernan said.
‘‘This outcome for Mackenzie is primarily due to the district’s low levels of employment in the professional, scientific, and technical services industry.
‘‘However, over the longer term, the automation of jobs in Mackenzie will be substantially higher than the nationwide average.’’
Many of the lost jobs would be replaced by new ones.
But, Kiernan said: ‘‘It seems extremely heroic to suppose that many of these new jobs will spring up in provincial towns and rural areas.’’
That could end up driving even more people into cities. ‘‘Even projected population growth outside Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga over the next 25 years of just 0.4 per cent per annum could prove to be too optimistic as automation ramps up.’’