Non degree holders likely to lose jobs to robots

With the increasing adoption of robotics, it is predicted that Automation will displace an estimated 20 million manufacturing jobs by 2030 according to a report by Oxford Economics.

However, those with manual jobs that do not require soft skills will likely be more impacted.

The effects of these job losses will vary greatly across countries and regions, with a disproportionate toll on lower-skilled workers and on poorer local economies.

Project Management Institute (PMI) Managing Director for Sub Saharan Africa George Asamani says soft skills like communication, emotional intelligence, and empathy, which cannot be replicated by AI, will play a role in ensuing people don’t lose jobs.

“Hybrid and work from home mandates demand collaborative work across other functional areas hence, we call them power skills. As humans, we are (still) better than computers at many of these creative, relationship-based activities, "Asamani, told The Star.

That notwithstanding, in the past decade, AI and robots have waded their way into homes and workplaces, and invaded factories rendering thousands jobless.

The invasion of workplace by machines globally, as of 2020, increased to 3 million operating industrial robots - a 10 percent increase from 2019.

In Kenya The introduction of tea plucking machines in the tea harvesting zones of the country sent home over 60,000 employees from the tea estates as the multinationals moved to cut costs.

According to jobs platform Zippia, having a college degree can protect you from job loss by at least 21percent.

Estimates show that at least 50 percent of the work done by those without bachelor's degrees could be automated with existing technologies. 

However, this just gives us a glimpse of what to expect from sentient AI.

A study by Deloitte states that soft skill-intensive jobs will grow two and a half times faster than other jobs and by 2030 soft skills jobs will make up 63percent of all jobs. 

An overwhelming majority (92percent) of talent professionals and hiring managers surveyed by LinkedIn said that soft skills matter as much or more in recruitment than hard skills.

Less than 90 percent said that bad hires were typically the ones that needed more soft skills.

The research also points out that while hiring managers have specific demands for hard skills and experience, soft skills are the critical drivers for success. 

As AI and automation continue to advance, machines will do tasks that humans perform today.

This means that the jobs available to humans in the future will require creativity, problem-solving, and emotional intelligence, which are difficult to automate.

"Inversely, as AI finds more application in other industries and increasingly gets complex, there will be a demand for people who can work with and manage these systems, and soft skills like communication, teamwork, and leadership will become crucial," added Asamani. 

As AI and automation continue to displace jobs, PMI recommends that people master skills in Ways of Working, Power Skills, and Business Acumen to prepare for the future.