Our Fight for Human Relevance

The impact of technology on employment is threatening the workforce of the future.

Ted Pulton | May 18, 2021

Mind

- 7 minute read -

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We’re at the cusp of profound disruption in global labor markets, fueled by the what the World Economic Forum describes as the fusion of physical, digital, and biological technologies.

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These same forces are responsible for precipitating ever-accelerating creative disruption on an epic scale in every industry.

It will happen far more quickly than most expect, affect every facet of our lives, be more acute in its impact, involve government economic policy and legislation, and radically shift the balance between the value of a career/technical education and that of the four-year college degree.

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The forces already at play impacting the employment market will far exceed those of global trade or job offshoring. Rather, AI and Globotics will displace jobs at a massive and ever-accelerating rate.

These include white collar professions that have already been penetrated in legal, banking, insurance and myriad customer service roles.

Yet Steve Mnuchin, upon becoming Secretary of the Treasury in 2017 said,

“Automation isn’t about to displace American workers. The phenomenon is not even on our radar screen. Such effects are 50 to 100 more years away.”

This stands in stark contrast to a joint statement from the World Economic Forum and McKinsey.

“Ubiquitous, mobile supercomputing. Artificially intelligent robots. Self-driving cars. Neuro-technological brain enhancements. Genetic editing. The 4th industrial revolution is happening at exponential speed.”

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Flippy the robotic cook - who never takes a day off - is already working the kitchens of quick-serve restaurants performing tasks way more efficiently than humans.

Softbank just introduced a robotic waitress in Japan that doesn’t earn tips and only takes time off to charge “her” batteries.

VW is using AI to speed up production time by “reducing manual interventions.”

And Deloitte tells us that Smart Factories will be the next decade’s competitive edge for manufacturers that “…will improve cost throughput, quality, safety, and revenue growth.”

That’s code for…
Job Displacement.

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By 2026, fewer than 25% of American jobs will actually require a bachelor’s degree.

This is why the demand for reskilling and upskilling – a $240Bn market – will continue to soar to fill “last mile” career & technical ed programs that bachelor’s curricula are too broad to address.

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The four-year college degree is failing miserably in this environment of hyper-evolution. 41% of grads are working in jobs not requiring a degree.

Instead of spending four years on a degree and amassing life-crushing debt - a coding boot camp, for around $12,000 and nine weeks, can as much as double annual earnings. Not to mention, put one on a career path that pays well and has a massive need for workers.

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We’re currently told we’ll have a place working alongside the bots.

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But the opportunity for bots to replace workers in both developed and developing countries, when viewed in the context of vastly reduced costs and steadily rising productivity will create an intense period of challenge. Not to mention an increasingly vast, unemployed human labor pool will fight not only for work, but also against rising inequality and lapsing into irrelevance.

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How will your company prepare to meet the unique challenges of human capital management in an era of global labor market disruption?

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