ZOBEL: AS ROBOTS TAKE OVER, FILIPINOS MUST LEARN NEW SKILLS

The Philippines has a rare opportunity to position itself better in global manufacturing by rethinking its educational curriculum and redesigning incentives for research and development ( R&D) and innovation, business tycoon Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala yesterday said.

The chair and chief executive of the country’s oldest business house Ayala Corp. said in a keynote speech during the Philippine Manufacturing Summit the local industrial sector could no longer rely on low-cost labor as a competitive advantage in a global environment where advanced automation was fast becomingmore affordable, more efficient and more productive.

Citing an estimate by Boston Consulting Group, Zobel noted that a human welder earns about $25 per hour while the equivalent operating cost per hour for a robot is around $8.

But Industry 4.0, or the fourth industrial revolution characterized by a range of new technologies fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds and resulting in dramatic business and economic shifts and disruptions, should be viewed as an opportunity rather than a threat, Zobel said.

Concerns of job displacement amid Industry 4.0, Zobel said, stemmed largely from the mismatch between prevalent skills and the skills needed for disruptive jobs, exacerbated by the dizzying pace at which technology had developed in the past decade alone.

“I strongly believe that we can navigate the employment challenges brought about by Industry 4.0 by retooling and reskilling the labor force, while also reexamining existing educational curriculums,” he said.

He said the Philippines could take its cue from Singapore’s skills upgrading program called SkillsFuture, a national movement to enhance the competitiveness of Singaporeans through subsidized skills training, career guidance, internships and leadership programs to develop managerial capability.