The Impact of Technological Change on Skills!

Viewing through the lens of history

Technology has always disrupted the course of mankind, most of the time the beneficiaries of such disruption have outweighed those who had been harmed. Technology has always been the catalyst of growth, the harbinger of modern evolution and exponential progress. When we see in retrospection, technological changes have not always been welcomed, most of the time it has been opposed as it changes the economic as well as the social framework of the society.

When we talk about the nascent phase of the industrial revolution, machines were opposed by the workers since it reduced human efforts and required less labor to do the same job. People feared that the skills they possessed at the time suddenly became obsolete.

Those who opposed this change were tagged as ‘Luddite’, a group of British workers opposing the industrial revolution by destroying labor-saving textile machinery during the early 19^th Century. Eventually, people realized that machines did more good than harm and adopted the change.

Technological Trends and Its Impact

Capitalism has been all about the maximization of profits, how that is achieved is irrelevant to the Bourgeoisie class, this has shaped the modern society in which we are living. Any technological change is adapted because it adds value in terms of efficiency and effectiveness; it provides a better way of doing things. Let’s delve into the current technological trends and their impact on the skills required from the workforce.

Starting with the trend that has impacted most people’s lives in the past two decades, if you haven’t guessed it already, we are talking about Social Media. With the increased penetration of internet services, social media spread like a wildfire. Today it controls our life, we are so addicted and inclined towards it that it’s hard to imagine a time when it didn’t exist. Talking about its impact on the skills of the workforce, we have job roles like Social Media Manager, Digital Marketer, etc. which was alien to us just a decade ago. More and more people are equipping themselves with relevant skills for the social media industry given its growth and proliferation in the contemporary.

Let’s address the recent technological transformation that has created the buzz in the industry, the Artificial Intelligence technology. Artificial Intelligence can be described as the simulation of human intelligence in machines to carry out complex tasks that earlier required human intervention and intelligence.

Data is the fuel for today’s technological revolution, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning requires tons and tons of data to train machines for complex analysis. Job roles like Data Scientists and Data engineers are in high demand and the supply of labor for the same is low making it a lucrative job prospect in terms of remuneration.

With machines being trained to do relatively complex human tasks, some skills and jobs are sure to go obsolete. Most of the jobs that lie in this category are repetitive and are process-oriented. Automation is sure to kill many jobs but it will generate new jobs that will be more techs oriented and it will also require skill up-gradation for the workforce. The future requires corporations and individuals to assess the needs and requirements of the emerging industries and training themselves accordingly to make themselves more valuable for the job.

The Way Forward

To turn this new wave of technological evolution in the form of Artificial Intelligence and Big data favorable for the human race, the anticipation of skills using surveys, tools, and data is paramount. The digital sector is catching up and replacing traditional methods for example, digital banking has transformed the traditional banking industry. To train the workforce with relevant skills required to do the task in emerging industries is paramount.