Technology leads way forward for work
As I drove under one of the gantries on one of Johannesburg’s highways recently, I wondered how it can be that someone’s job is to sit inside a cubicle and point at a card machine for motorists and then get paid at month end?
The situation I’m referring to is what I encountered at a gated toll plaza, where only card payments were accepted. All the attendant had to do was to punch the right amount into the machine, point it at a motorist and the motorist taps their card. The barrier opens and the motorist drives through.
Try to automate this process and so much dust will be raised, unions will be up in arms as people’s livelihoods are being threatened here. It is after all the union’s job to protect its members. In 2016, when news broke that Pick n Pay was to try out selfservice checkout points at its Observatory branch in Cape
Town, Cosatu and its affiliate, the SA Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union, rose to the occasion to stop the proliferation of such machines as they were seen as a possible threat that would lead to job losses.
One of the agitations of the “FeesMustFall” movement was the absorption of contract workers and that universities must not outsource support staff. That was welcome; job losses affect the poor.
The call centre world is slowly being taken over by chatbots, robots are delivering supplies to guests in hotels, 3D printers are building houses, while courses in Ivy League universities are now open to all people. I do not think computers, IT or the 4th Industrial Revolution will steal jobs, I think jobs simply evolve. No-one could have stolen the photography market from the camera film stronghold Kodak, but the force of disruptive technology eventually cost Kodak so much as it entered the digital market too late. As analogue photography declined, many more photographers were created, albeit digital ones. As old-school music production declined, many more music producers emerged.
In the SA of today, many jobs are being protected only through political discourse and radical arguments of being electorally correct. The reality faced of late is that if you can resist technology, can you resist a change of lifestyle forced by the pandemic?
I think the answer is not. Supermarkets are seeing a drastic reduction in their footfall; many more people are shopping online. A research by Stellenbosch University shows that convenience plays a huge part in why people shop online. Retail stores all over the country are expanding