Many jobs to gradually vanish – but new roles will replace them

More than 21 million jobs will be created worldwide in the next decade as a result of automation and artificial intelligence, the Future Skills report by the British Council says.

While some traditional jobs will disappear, “organisations and nations that act now to develop future skills and transform their workplaces will thrive”, said the paper released today.

As a global trade and logistics centre, the UAE will have a “direct and visible” effect on its labour market from what is being called the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Sectors with the highest job losses are expected to include telemarketing, property, accounting and auditing. In the UAE banking sector many traditional jobs have already been lost to automation.

A study by the University of Oxford shows 47 per cent of jobs could be automated in the next 20 years. The losses will not be restricted to the private sector. Reform, a UK think tank, estimates that a quarter of a million government jobs could disappear by 2033, to be replaced by robots.

The UAE economy, which relies heavily on international workers, will become increasingly diverse and global, meaning job-seeking Emiratis will compete with expatriates and highly qualified workers from all over the world.

Those jobs will also demand a different skill set. A recent study by the Foundation for Young Australians found youths believed the amount

A quarter of a million government jobs could disappear by 2033, to be replaced by robots

of time they spend using science and mathematics would rise by 77 per cent, and 44 per cent more time would be for critical thinking.

They believed that the need for management would fall by more than a quarter, and expected to go through 17 employers and five changes of career during their working lives.

Diversification will also become a priority for the UAE, with the share of GDP from oil expected to fall to 20 per cent by 2021 and to zero in the next 50 years.