Any chance you have been to New York in the last 12 months? Perhaps visiting McDonalds on the corner of Third Avenue and 58th Street to get yourself a cheese burger?
So this is how it works at that particular McDonalds restaurant: you go to a touch screen kiosk, click the food and beverage you want. You use your mobile phone to pay, then pick up your hamburger that has been grilled to perfection by a McRobot. When are we going to have McRobots in Thailand you wonder?
I was recently the key-note speaker at an event for the Young Professionals of the German-Thai Chamber of Commerce. I was talking about how the YP's could possibly compete with the robots in the future job market.
Are Job Boards old fashioned?
Monster.com started just over 20 years ago. JobsDB was set up in 1998, exactly 20 years ago. But it is only 15 years ago that job boards became a real option for employers and employees to connect on the internet. LinkedIn started in 2003, 15 years ago, the same year that I started in Executive Search & Recruitment here in Thailand.
I still remember back then, most people were sure that the traditional recruitment firms would die. 15 years ago, there were 150 registered recruitment firms in Thailand. Today, there are over 300!
Same same but different: Automation or Robotics
So it's time we look at the difference between automation and robotics. If you are in Thailand, you know what it means when we say "same same but different".
Automation means using some software, machines or technology to carry out a task which would otherwise be done by a human worker, an accounting software or CRM.
Robotics is a part of engineering. It's design, building, programing and using machines. A robot that can do a series of actions just like a person would do it. Robots are not new; robots have actually been used in manufacturing since 60 years ago.
Industrial revolutions 101
The 1st industrial revolution was in Europe 150 years ago, when the process of making something went from hand production to machines, and when people came from farms to factories. Water and steam were used to power the production. The first known example was from UK, when textiles manufacturing changed from hands to machines.
The second industrial revolution was when Ford mastered the moving assembly line and mass production of cars. It was electricity that powered this second phase, some 100 years ago.
The third industrial revolution started 50 years ago; now electronics and IT (information technology) were used to automate production. The internet started to come into our lives 25 years ago. Factories began to move to low-wage countries to save labour costs. But labour costs are growing less and less important: a US$500 first-generation iPad included only about US$33 of manufacturing labour, of which the final assembly in China accounted for just US$8 or 1% to 2% of total cost.
Offshore production is increasingly moving back to rich countries not because Chinese wages are rising, but because companies now want to be closer to their customers so that they can respond more quickly to changes in demand. And some products are so sophisticated that it helps to have the people who design them and the people who make them in the same place.
The relationship between technology and social progress is once again being tested. Every industrial revolution so far – even if it brings disruptions – ultimately delivers more jobs, opportunity and progress, connecting people even more closely to the world around them.
What McKinsey and the World Economic Forum say
According to McKinsey, one third of jobs created in the US over the past 25 years did not exist at the beginning of these 25 years. In the coming years, companies that leverage technologies such as AI and IoT will create millions of new jobs. Further, in the last 60 years automation has only eliminated one occupation: elevator operators.
According to the World Economic Forum, it's not only the industrial revolution which will impact our lives and disrupt the labour market. There are also things like climate change, the rise of the middle class in many emerging markets, aging populations, the changing aspirations of women which are factors that will have significant impacts on jobs.
And most children entering primary school today will work in jobs that don't even exist yet.
STEM education the most relevant
Talking about education, with millions of jobs at risk and a worldwide employment crisis looming, it is only logical that we should turn to education as a way to understand and prepare for the robotic workforce of tomorrow. The world desperately needs more science, technology, engineering and math graduates to remain competitive. That is what we call STEM education.
Both governments and the private sector must invest in reskilling today's workforce. This could also provide lower to mid-income workers a chance to improve their skill sets and then a better life.
We are going into a time hopefully not of unemployment, but more of re-deployment. Jobs will not entirely disappear; rather, they will be re-defined.
With more in STEM, it's not so much about being displaced by this revolution – but we will need smart people who can lead it.
Which jobs are at risk?
Most at risk are those jobs which are on some level of routine, repetitive and predictable. Any task that takes no time to think about will be automated.
Telemarketing, calling out, is highly routine and I guess you also receive these irritating robocalls. Loan officers at banks, cashiers, tax preparation, which involves systematically processing large amounts of predictable data are at risk. Lawyers will need fewer paralegals and legal assistants. Fast-food cooks are disappearing fast. The robots are already flipping burgers in New York!
What jobs will be safe from robots?
The first are jobs that involve genuine creativity, such as being an artist, a scientist, or developing a new business strategy. For now at least, humans are still best at creativity but there's a caveat there. I can't guarantee you that in 20 years a computer won't be the most creative entity on the planet. We'll see a job like CRO: Chief Robotics Officer.
The second area which is likely to be safe from robotics are occupations that involve building complex relationships with people: caring for others, doctors and nurses, personal trainers at Fitness First, or business roles that require you to build close relationships with clients and employees. Being in management, where you lead and motivate others, is hard to eliminate.
The third area involves jobs that are highly unpredictable – for example, emergency situations, disasters, or as simple as a plumber who is called out to fix your kitchen sink.
How can you prepare yourself for the change that's coming?
Financial advisors always tell us not to put all our money into one stock – a better strategy is to diversify our portfolio. This could be an example for how to manage one's own career; going forward people will be looking to diversify their careers.
You will have to become as agile as possible. Have many forms of talent. In the future, we'll all have seven or eight jobs, working for a number of companies at the same time rather than working for one big corporation.
I forgot to mention, the job with the least probability of automation. At 0.81% [data from The Future of Jobs] comes from the religious world. You could become a priest and most likely have a job for life.
Author: Tom Sorensen is a Partner at Boyden Thailand, a global Top 10 executive search firm. Contact tsorensen@boyden.com and learn more on www.boyden.co.th
Series Editor: Christopher F. Bruton is Executive Director of Dataconsult Ltd, chris@dataconsult.co.th. Dataconsult's Thailand Regional Forum provides seminars and extensive documentation to update business on future trends in Thailand and in the Mekong Region.