Covid-19: a robot revolution?

Throughout history, every wave of new technology has caused concerns about

workers being replaced by machines. In October 2020, the World Economic Forum

(WEF) released its most recent research into 300 of the world’s biggest companies.

It showed that over 50% of companies expected to speed up their plans for

automation because of covid-19.

The WEF predicts that by 2025, machines could do half of all work, causing 85 million job losses around the world. The workers most likely to be replaced by machines are those in the lowest-paid, lowest-skill jobs. Women, young people and those with a lower level of education more commonly work in these roles.

“However, that doesn’t mean that new jobs won’t emerge,” says Saadia Zahidi, the managing director at the WEF. In fact, technology in the workplace is expected to create 12 million more new jobs than it will replace, in areas such as engineering and artificial intelligence.

The WEF report has advised governments that the key to adapting to the future lies in education and skills - Andy Haldane, Chief Economist at the Bank of England, agrees. He says that to ensure equality, everyone should be given the opportunity to “train, retrain and retrain again” to keep up with the ever-changing world of work.