What does the future of jobs look like for SA?

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JIMMY MOYAHA: We’re taking a look at the future of jobs – at least according to the World Economic Forum. They put out a Future of Jobs report ahead of their gathering next week in Davos, and we’re going to be taking a look at the report and trying to make sense of it.

I’m joined on the line by economist and founder of Pan African Investments, Dr Iraj Abedian, to take a look at this. Dr Iraj, thanks so much for taking the time. An interesting report by the World Economic Forum. What does it suggest about the labour-market landscape, both locally and even more, I suppose, internationally as well?

IRAJ ABEDIAN: First of all, Jimmy, compliments of the season to you and to our listeners. In terms of this report, it’s important to note that it’s not just the World Economic Forum that has come with these types of predictions and insight into the future of job markets globally.

Almost all the institutions of research more or less repeat the same message that the nature of jobs right across the spectrum, from the least to the most skilled – we used to [refer to] ‘skilled’, ‘semi-skilled’ – that kind of categorisation is no longer really a proper description of the spectrum.

But, be as it may, all these categories of jobs are going to be fundamentally affected by digitalisation, by generative and artificial intelligence [AI], and by the reconceptualisation of the workplace.

During Covid we got used to working online and all of that; that is the tip of iceberg.

With many of the jobs – possibly 40-45% of jobs as we know them – the front desk or frontline opportunities, administrative, clerical and so on, are either going to be completely wiped out, not being needed, in the same way that you and I don’t know typewriters any more, and typists don’t exist in the sense that I remember them. So that is the message.

The message is that when we think of jobs we need to think very differently. We need to think systems, we need to think apps, we need to think automation and importantly digitalisation and systematisation of the various nodes of job markets.

So it’s a very profound message for everybody, but especially the young ones. There are other aspects to that which we can also discuss.

JIMMY MOYAHA: One of those aspects is the skills. What does this shift then say about the skills that are going to be in demand? As you say, we no longer have things like typewriters and we are starting to automate things a lot more, which therefore suggests that new skills are going to be required. We’re shifting from the traditional skills that were in demand 10, 15, 20 years ago to a new skillset. What kinds of skills are we looking at for the future?

IRAJ ABEDIAN: Fundamentally, it’s about analytical skills, the skills that [go] into creating apps, re-automating the processes. That basically means analytical, it means software development. It means integration, ingestion of data, big data management, databases that are global, not even local, and ability – technical as well as analytical – as well as conceptual, as to how we can use the big data for all kinds of uses from medical to marketing, to production, etc.

So the shift, Jimmy, as I understand it, is going to move from the frontline low-skilled repetitive [market] to the skill-intensive, knowledge-intensive and analytics-intensive end of the market.

So it’s going to be fundamental. It’s not going to be a marginal 10%, 20%. A lot of frontline low analysis, administration and clerical [jobs are] going to disappear. And a whole lot of bulking is going to happen at the far extreme end of the analytics.

That means quite a massive change in the distribution of income. It means a massive change in the age distribution of those who are wanted.

At the same time it’s going to extend the job years of being in a job. So the 55, 65 that was the age of retirement may well extend way beyond that, which means at the lower entry level, we may have a bulking up of unemployment. And that’s going to have both socioeconomic as well as political implications.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Dr Iraj, how then does a country prepare for this? You’re an economist. You look at kind of where economies grow and how economies get things going. How then do economies like South Africa prepare for this understanding that things like AI, as you’ve said, are new sectors and new markets that we still need to build out in South Africa? How do you then ensure that your economy is equipped to transition with this change in work, and ensure that you do have sort of a future-proof environment?

IRAJ ABEDIAN: First of all, I wish I knew …

Let me be absolutely honest, because it’s changing so fast that in the next five years we are going to see more changes in this space than we have had over the past 50 years and over the past 20 years.

So the pace at which that is changing makes it extremely difficult to answer your question in terms of how we predict, because how we do it assumes that we know what it’s going to be like in five years’ time – which we don’t. And with the greatest humility, Jimmy, I would admit that very few people, if anybody, know.

Number two, we need to rethink in a fundamental way our so-called education system and change the schooling and education system as conventionally known since the advent of the Industrial Revolution to human-resource development.

Which means we need to prepare our younger generations to think of a very different kind of acquiring knowledge, applying knowledge, and networking what they know and what they do not know.

So that means the shift of education in each country – especially countries like ours, where we have our own challenges in any case with our education system. With respect, just highlight that I’m not philosophising. We are still thinking – our politicians and our policymakers are thinking – whether the school should have toilets or not, and how quickly we can make a sanitary space for our education and [make it] safe, as opposed to bringing and extending the whole concept into human-resource development from cradle to grave, so to speak, so that our youngsters are made aware, and helped and assisted in developing their analytical space very early on – not just through six or seven hours of schooling.

So it’s a fundamental shift in our human-resource development strategy before formal schooling, during schooling and post schooling, and after having a job.

To be honest, I’ve had over the past 10 years to reinvent myself three, four times. Every time the technology changes, my field is affected. So I need to keep up with it or I’ll be blown away.

And that is the challenge for countries such as South Africa – that we have to change the discourse. We need to understand the urgency of time. We need to look at immediate interventions in a whole range of areas that relate to and enable human-resource development, for example, broadband accessibility, et cetera. And therefore I would say that’s where our immediate challenge lies.

JIMMY MOYAHA: The only constant in life is change [chuckles], and that is what the report suggests.

We will have to leave the conversation there. Dr Iraj, thanks so much for the time and the insights.

Iraj Abedian, an economist and founder of Pan African Investments, has been considering the latest Future of Jobs report put out by the World Economic Forum, which shows a couple of shifts happening and a couple of things that we need to rethink when we are looking at the future of jobs.

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