Malaysia has to move fast as the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0), robotics as well as artificial Intelligence (AI) will be rendering 75 million jobs redundant in the world by 2022.
Business transformation consultant Joon Teoh said, according to World Economic Forum (WEF), jobs such as accountants, bookkeepers, payroll clerks, data entry clerks, administrative and executive secretaries, assembly hands, factory workers, client information and customer service personnel as well as business services and administration managers could be taken over by these technological developments.
“Whether you like it or not, WEF has already forecasted that these are sunset jobs and they will be replaced in the future. Those who carry out low value tasks have to upskill and be more flexible and open to new opportunities,” she said in an exclusive interview with Bernama here recently.
She said people have to learn new skills in the era of automation and digitalisation.
Teoh stressed that those who were doing the jobs mentioned would need to have training and make changes in order to carry out more analytical and value-added activities.
According to WEF, even though jobs maybe made redundant, there are actually more new jobs emerging than declining in 2022.
There will be a need to fill 133 million jobs created such as data analysts and scientists, AI and machine learning specialists, general and operation managers, software and apps developers and analysts, sales and marketing professionals, big data specialists, digital transformation specialists as well as new technology specialists.
Teoh is the CEO and founder of Agos Asia Sdn Bhd which specialises in process improvement for finance, human resource (HR) and procurement as well as technology enhancements in the aspects of robotic process automation (RBA) and AI.
She also called on the government to set up a one-stop centre to store all IR4.0 related information because there were too many ministries and agencies involved and the information are scattered all over.
She said government should also broaden the scope of IR4.0 to include all activities and industries in addition to manufacturing.
“We want to know what kind of incentive or funding from government to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia to adopt IR4.0,” she said.
She said government should identify the partners in the eco-system such as training provider and consultancy firm as well as available incentives.
— BERNAMA
