The future of jobs in SA: To upskill or bow down to AI?

As South Africa yesterday marked Workers’ Day, experts called for a major drive for the upskilling of the population for future jobs – in line with the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), an area in which the country largely trails behind, compared to advanced economies.

AI in the workplace

While artificial intelligence could benefit an economy by boosting productivity, it could also be a threat to jobs, which was why there needed to be a major realignment of education and training.

Humans still run the show

The latest World Economic Forum (WEF) Future of Jobs report said major global companies had estimated 34% of all business-related tasks were currently being performed by machines, with the remaining 66% by humans.

Bringing together the perspectives of 803 companies, collectively employing more than 11.3 million people across 27 industry clusters and 45 economies from all world regions, in its biannual survey, WEF found:

• The majority of the fastest declining roles were clerical or secretarial, with bank tellers and related clerks in postal services, as well as data entry, cashiers and ticketing clerks topping the list;
• The majority of the fastest-growing roles were technology related;
• AI and machine learning specialists topped the list of fast-growing jobs, followed by sustainability specialists, business intelligence analysts and information security analysts;
• Renewable energy engineers, solar energy installation and systems engineers were relatively fast-growing roles as economies shifted towards renewables;
• Large-scale job growth was expected in education, agriculture, digital commerce and trade;
• Jobs for agricultural professionals, especially equipment operators, were expected increase by about 30%; and
• There would be a higher-than-average churn in the supply chain, transportation, media, entertainment and sports industries.

AI’s impact on SA’s growth

University of Johannesburg associate economics professor Peter Baur and independent political analyst Sandile Swana said AI would have a huge impact in South Africa and Africa’s economic growth.

Bauer said: “AI has a significant impact on economic growth and is expected to boost productivity by 38% by 2035.

“AI does not affect each sector of the economy equally, but already there tends to be quite an effect as a result of it.”

READ: Scared AI will take your job? How to make yourself indispensable

Skills demand

Baur said the largest impact in SA would be on the tertiary sector, “which has seen a radical increase in growth, predominantly since the ’90s”.

“The tertiary sector is considered a knowledge-based economy, with a greater focus on technology and related business, such as e-commerce and the like.

“We are likely to see the demand for more skilled people with the necessary skill sets becoming more apparent as South Africa moves forward,” said Baur.

Swana said: “AI will change many professions, not just blue-collar work.

Population

“Many major economies, like China and Japan, are facing population decline. That will require more AI and robots to cover the shortage of labour.

“The shortage of labour is a reality in most advanced economies.”

Africa, said Swana, was “not geared to exploit its natural environment, resources and agriculture to meet all of the continent’s needs”.

“This could increase GDP (gross domestic product) in SA tenfold over the next 30 years.

“As the population gets more skilled, Africa will be able to export labour and close labour shortages around the world.

“The recent promotion of renewables demands that our TVET [technical and vocational education and training] colleges and universities develop such technologies and manufacture the full spectrum of needed products and systems, for SA and export.

Missed opportunities

“Our labour, pupils and the general population are not yet taught the elementary skills of installing, operating and maintaining a solar power system for a home.

“This means tremendous wealth-creation opportunities for the native population are being missed without just cause,” Swana said.

AI, robotics and automation were “opportunities to improve productivity and grow the economy,” Swana said.