Technology 'imperils 12 million jobs' (Thailand)

[yuiyoshida]

YuMi the barista robot from ABB Robotics made coffee for all the attendees at last month's Manufacturing Expo 2016 at Bitec Bang Na - and could begin replacing human workers at coffee shops and franchises at any time. (Post Today photo)

About 12 million Thais may lose their jobs to robots and "dehumanised smart systems" over the next 20 years, wiping out one-third of the 37 million positions in the workforce.

Administrative and office workers with basic skills are most at risk from the impact of "Industry 4.0" or the world's fourth industrial revolution, according to a joint study by the Quality Learning Foundation (QLF), Dhurakij Pundit University (DPU) and the World Bank (WB).

Advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology and 3D printing will take hold in all industries, said the study. However, demand for computer engineering and mathematics will dramatically increase.

Speaking at a forum titled "How Thai Education Should Prepare for Thailand 4.0" held by the QLF Tuesday, Kiatanan Luankeaw, DPU's Dean of the Faculty of Economics, said the fourth industrial revolution will transform the way people work.

Some jobs will disappear, others will grow, while jobs that do not exist today will become common.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1034329/technology-imperils-12-million-jobs

[glennward]

1. Technology already has destroyed over 12 million jobs in the USA.

I just left the hospital last evening where i received and paid for a parking pass using automated entry and exit gates, automated payment machines. I thought to myself then: there are at least four either full or part-time jobs lost at this one hospital parking lot alone. How many parking lots across the nation are the same and how many jobs have been eliminated as a result?

Then think about highways we travel with our new eZ-passes. How many jobs eliminated? Phone operators, receptionists, bank staff, business staffs. It is much too easy to point to all kinds of trade deals and movement of jobs by corporations but we fail to see or understand the role that technology plays in the mass discontent about jobs and lost wages. Instead of just lashing out and blaming politicians we don't like we ought to be helping them come up with solutions to our mutual needs that will require new kinds of jobs and skills. We don't lash out at the Zuckerman's Jobs, and Gates of the world who have given us magnificant communication technology and social networks, yet they are responsible for the loss of as many, if not more jobs than any trade deals we have had in the last decade.

Healthcare services, infrastructure rebuilding and maintenance, education, training jobs aren't easily outsourced to other countries and technology is used as a support rather than a replacement of jobs in these areas. It seems to me that we should be putting our heads together about possible solutions to our economic woes.

[dembotoz]

2. welcome to du...you are right..the jobs no longer exist

can not bring jobs back to the us that no longer exist

[The2ndWheel]

3. And not everyone wants to or can do

computer engineering and mathematics. Even if everyone wanted to and could do that, the supply would then be so large that a person with those skills wouldn't be in as much demand.

Most of us people aren't really needed, other than to consume. Since we're not just given money, people have had to work, even if it's doing one of those not completely needed jobs. With even more people alive today, and ever increasing automation, any individual will be needed that much less. Other than to consume, but there's almost 3 billion people in China and India alone, so Americans certainly aren't as needed as they once were, even to just consume.

[Recursion]

4. Not many jobs for wheat threshers or farriers, either

It's only a bad thing if we make it be one.