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The events will accelerate the adoption of robots, artificial intelligence and other new automation technologies.
Everything suggests that the economic shock caused by the pandemic coronavirus will accelerate the adoption of new automation technologies. However, the workers most affected are likely to be generally the same in both cases.
Everyone seems to agree, today, that the world of work will never be the same after the COVID-19. The containment measures would, for example, was a kind of epiphany for companies, notably in the areas of teleworking and electronic commerce, to such an extent that a flashback would be more than unlikely.
It is not enough that a new technology is available to be adopted, explained, last month, a study by the Institute for research on public policy (IRPP)on the impact of automation in Canada. It also depends on the financial capacities of businesses, regulatory frameworks, collective agreements, the attitude of the customers, as well as the social and economic context.
Thus, it is more than probable that the events will contribute, not only to accelerate the adoption, by businesses, teleworking and e-commerce, but also robots, artificial intelligence and other new technologies of automation, advanced Thursday to a report of the Organization for economic cooperation and development (OECD) on the future of the world of work in Canada. The economic recovery promises to be long and difficult, and history has shown that recessions and the struggle for survival, are powerful engines of change and innovations. In addition, as the rules of social distancing are not about to be lifted, you will want to compensate the workers in factories by machines at the same time as the customers, too, will be increasingly willing (and ask) to interact with machines rather than people.
Portrait-robot
It has long sought to draw up the list of jobs most threatened by automation, experts say. It is now realised that instead of jobs to disappear, we should talk about jobs brought to change from the inside, the tasks routine, repetitive, and stereotyped, that can be left to machines as opposed to those that require social skills, the solution of new problems, creativity and ability to adapt.
According to the study of the lRPP, only 11 % of canadian workers would have more than 70% chance of seeing their jobs transformed as compared with 29 % of workers exposed to a risk is more moderate (between 50 % and 70 % risk).
The first ranks of the workers most exposed are the least educated (33 % of high risk for workers without a diploma, compared with 3.6% for holders of a bachelor’s degree), workers are paid less (27 % for the lowest decile group, compared to 2 % for the top decile), as well as those working in the manufacturing sectors (27 %), and hotels and catering (15 %), transport (14.5 %) and retail trade (13.4 per cent).
If the trend continues
Apart from a few exceptions (the presence of the manufacturing sector and absence of women), this portrait presents a disturbing similarity with the one of the main victims of the current crisis of the pandemic in the labour market in Canada.
To help them to adapt to this other shock that awaits them, perhaps even before the end of the current crisis, the OECD is essentially putting forward the importance of the training in terms of knowledge, but also skills. If the proportion of holders of the diploma of post-secondary education in the 25-64 age group is much higher in Canada (58 %) than the average of industrialized countries (37 %) and that two-thirds of adults would have benefited from one form or another of extra training in 2016, workers, less-educated, less well-paid or older are once again office, of poor parents, including in comparison to the OECD average.
Like many other countries, Canada was already grappling with a gradual disappearance of the jobs of middle class occupied by workers with moderately or poorly trained, reports the OECD. If nothing changes, it will be a pandemic and the acceleration of the automation widen even more the gap between the living standards of workers well-trained and well-paid, and all the others.
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