Why the Fourth Industrial Revolution will take away your job.
It is happening again.
No one wants to be in a sinking boat without a life jacket.
Imagine yourself struggling to survive in a wrecked boat without a life jacket, drowning in an ocean with little or no swimming skill. You will definitely sink and drown if you fail to raise your head up above waters, with one hand up while shouting for help and sustaining some pressure against waters below with the other hand. For sure, one will eventually drown if no one comes to his rescue.
For many centuries now, the world has toed the line of one revolution to another. This was as a result of the curiosity in man to discover new ways to better the way he lives through constant research and innovations.
Our knowledge of the First Industrial Revolution revealed that water and steam power was used to mechanize production; The Second used electric power to create mass production while The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production.
“Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres” as it was stated by Klaus Schwab in his work published on Foreign Affairs online blog in 2015.
The truth is that we don’t know where all these revolutions can take us, but through various research works and projections, we have been given a glimpse of what we should expect and be better prepared for the 4IR which is already upon us. This call for us to be updated in the trends of life evolution, otherwise one will sink in the sand of time.
The 4IR holds a great deal for individual, businesses/corporate organizations and as well for startups. According to research available, by 2020, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will have brought us advanced robotics and autonomous transport, artificial intelligence and machine learning, advanced materials, biotechnology, and genomics. We are talking about two months from today. And of a truth, these developments will transform the way we live, and the way we work.
The 4IR will certainly have a disruptive effect on the economy of a nation that fails to embrace the tenets of this new emerging world.
Now the big question is…
In what ways will 4IR take away your job?
The World Economic Forum’s The Future of Jobs report predicts that 75 million jobs worldwide will be displaced by automation by 2022. In the same period, 133 million new jobs will be added to the global economy, but in most cases, the workers who lose their current jobs will not have the necessary qualifications to fill the new positions, ones that are already emerging and going largely unfilled.
McKinsey on his own analysis predicts that 800 million workers could be displaced in 42 countries, or a third of the workforce, because of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
The truth is that many people who fail to align themselves with the requisite skills needed for the 4IR will certainly lose their jobs, some jobs will disappear, others will grow and jobs that don’t even exist today will become commonplace. But one thing I know for sure is that the future workforce will need to align its skillset to keep pace.
The 4IR is not just wishful thinking introduced by Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum in 2016. The 4IR is here to stay and moving faster than we thought. What is needed therefore is a complete mental shift to this new world, to enable everyone to thrive and survive in the 4IR.
