“Digital skills, IT skills, all the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) skills are really very important for…the workers of the future,” said Stefano Scabbio, president of Northern Europe, Mediterranean, and Eastern Europe at ManpowerGroup, a global staffing firm.
In a January survey of 20,000 employers from 42 countries, ManpowerGroup found 86 percent of companies plan to increase or maintain headcount in the next two years due to automation, with the biggest job gains in the IT, customer service and advanced manufacturing sectors.
But employers said they struggle to find talent with the right mix of skills, like problem solving, communication, organization and collaboration.
“It’s important that we educate companies of every size to really understand the importance of re-skilling and skilling people,” Scabbio said.
There’s plenty of debate over just how many jobs will be lost to robots. A widely-cited study by two Oxford economists in 2013 found 47 percent of jobs in the U.S. were at risk of being automated over the next 20 years. Last year, McKinsey Global Institute, a think tank, estimated a similar 50 percent of activities in the global workforce are automatable.
Other experts point to history as proof that job losses from automation will be outweighed by the creation of new jobs. A 2017 report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation analyzed job growth in the locomotive and automobile industries at the turn of the 20th century. While railroad job growth slowed during the proliferation of the automobile, car mechanic and repairmen professions surged.
“Technology clearly creates jobs when it enables the creation of whole new industries and occupations,” the study said.
