Digital technology will replace cross border trade than relocating businesses
The most significant change visible in the coming years will be the shift of the Western economy to Asia and to some degree to Africa and Sahara.
With renewable energy gaining ground in the world, Sahara and Africa will end up as the provider of global renewable energy when fossil fuel in West Asia start diminishing gradually, said the Managing Director, Lion Brewery Suresh Shah in a keynote speech at the Employers Symposium 2019 hosted by the Employers Federation of Ceylon and held at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel in Colombo recently.
He said around 400-800 million jobs globally will be lost due to the automation process by 2030 while 500-900 million new jobs will also be created during the same period. ”This will also require 300-700 million people to be re-trained. According to reports 43 per cent of the jobs will be automated by 2030. Sixty percent of children entering primary education today will do jobs in the future that do not exist as yet. The jobs of the future will be creative jobs and interestingly jobs such as gardening and plumbing will remain while accountants will lose jobs.”
Technology will change with the development of new innovations such as Artificial Intelligence increasing exponentially while expanding mobile networks with access to global trade etc. “This trend will lead to part time work where people could work from anywhere and anytime and where people need not go to office physically for work. This is an emerging trend driven by technology,” he said.
He said India and China will be the two global economic powers in future and Sri Lanka being in close proximity to India should take advantage not to miss the opportunity to gain benefit out of it. The pattern of globalization will also change with emphasis being laid on data in the foam of videos and intra- company information on cross border trade than companies in the West relocating themselves in the Asian region. However it will not replace the Goods and Services trade while China and India will liberalise their trade for profit.
Mr. Shah, referring to young people of today, said they switch jobs constantly and even migrate to other countries for employment. “A Sri Lankan fast food outlet has lost considerable revenue owing to competition from Uber Eats. The change that will happen to businesses in Sri Lanka is that more females will be employed in the workplace to bring diversity to gain better results.”
He said 27 per cent of Sri Lankans are employed in agriculture contributing only 7 per cent of the GDP. “A lot of them are in poverty and we have to bring this percentage to around 12 per cent. We have to accommodate them in other sectors that need investments.”
ILO Country Director for Sri Lanka and Maldives Ms. Simrin Singh addressing the symposium said the basic tenets of the ILO is social justice and peace dividends, prosperity for workers and economies and political stability in countries is equally valid for up to this day. “A lot of discussion is going on the fourth industrial revolution on robots and artificial intelligence. ILO is more concerned about work that is human centered and shaped by us. The ILO has 187 member states,” she added.
ILO’s Wages Specialist Xavier Estupinan also spoke. Chairman of the Employers Federation of Ceylon Pravir Samarasinghe delivered the welcome address.