adminA key player in the Australian jobs market has warned that the rate at which robots replace humans in the workplace will spark an employment crisis and has urged companies and governments to urgently confront the issue.
Seek chief executive Andrew Bassat, whose company is one of the world’s largest global online employment marketplaces, said Australian companies were shaping up to be the “losers’’ in an age when threats and opportunities from disruption were challenging every industry.
“My view is that we have enough warning to know that we need to act with urgency to address this issue and can no longer afford to wait,” Mr Bassat told The Australian.
“Job losses will only accelerate as machines start to be smarter than people, given our brains were seen as the last line of defence. I can’t see new jobs being created in anywhere near the volumes that will make up for the jobs lost. The same examples of new jobs keep being used, like data analysts and engineers etc, but I can’t see them being created with anywhere near the volume needed.’’
Mr Bassat also urged policymakers and the media to start a long-term discussion about what we will do if jobs disappear. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has called for governments to impose a “robot tax” to slow down the pace of automation of the workplace, while Alibaba chairman Jack Ma has claimed that a robot chief executive could be on the cover of Time magazine in less than three decades.
“(Tesla founder) Elon Musk suggests a universal wage as an option,” Mr Bassat said. “Others talk about a robot tax. Other suggestions are out there. This is the debate we should be having now as it may be too late later.”
In a recent report, consulting giant McKinsey assessed more than 800 jobs to see how robots could replace people. It found the accommodation and food services sectors were the most ripe for automation, with machines able to perform about 75 percent of the work in those sectors.
In the resources sector, one of Australia’s biggest employers, it found robots could perform more than 60 percent of the work.
In another report, PwC claimed that automated bots in the future could take 38 percent of jobs in the US, 30 percent in Britain, 35 percent in Germany and 21 percent in Japan. — The Australlian.
Online Reporter