"Adapt or die” seems to be a suitable motto for retaining a place in the new job market.
As automation extends its reach into an increasing number of professions, the tendency for employers to view older workers as a financial burden might be sabotaging the potential of a highly capable workforce.
According to a recent report by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 16% of the world’s population is aged 55 years or older, and the entrepreneurial activity of this demographic affects 1.2 billion people.
While many might view the older workforce as a strain on productivity, statistics suggest the demographic is a largely untapped resource that has significant influence over the economy.
“Those older workers, those are the ones to be cut first because they cost the most money,” said Lindsay Meredith, professor of marketing strategy and economics at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business.
In many cases, the workers are being replaced by software, he said – “anywhere where you can easily create software and offload it to the customer.”
Automation is nothing new, as workers have been displaced for decades by the advancement of technology, but new areas are being affected, forcing even more senior-level workers to re-establish themselves.
“What goes now is getting rid of the entire service sector,” Meredith said. “So high-end service-sector jobs mostly at risk are accountants, lawyers and, to some degree, professors.”
James Rout, associate vice-president of education support and innovation at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, said sectors targeted for automation include “wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing, administrative and office support services, transportation storage.”
“Those are just a few in the cannon,” Rout said.
Meredith said the medical profession is also vulnerable to digital disruption because people are taking research into their own hands, cutting out the need for professional consultation.
“Because of the automation now available, a lot more training of patients and educating of patients can be taken place by software and online,” he said. “Instead of a doctor having to spend an extra five to 10 minutes talking about the nature of a surgery, what will happen in the future is someone will say, ‘Go hit this website I’ve got and it will explain everything.’”
One of the sectors most affected by the advancement of technology is transportation.
“With all the self-driving vehicles and automation that is going to happen in the transportation market there will probably be significant impact over the next 10 to 15 years,” said Bill Tam, CEO of the BC Tech Association.
Meredith said older workers, rather than throw away a lifetime of learning and start from scratch, need to reapply that expertise to new markets.
“If you are a lawyer, turn the other direction and become a lawyer who is very good at teaching IT; now you teach IT to all the other lawyers,” he said.
The key, according to Meredith, is to find some area that isn’t easily replicated by automation and become a specialist in that area.
Learning has become a lifelong venture and, more than ever, older workers are going back to make their skills more applicable to the new job market.
“It is more likely that some occupations will be made redundant due to automation, but it is also likely that specific tasks will be automated so workers should be able to take on new roles and opportunities within their existing occupations,” Rout said. “Those occupations are going to change and there is going to be a shift in the core skills needed for those occupations.”
According to Tam and other professionals, older workers have the keenest sense of what operations can be automated and where redundancies lie.
“Anyone who can bring subject-matter expertise from particular areas, and can apply some of the attributes of tech toward that, is very well suited [to the new job market],” Tam said. “Their area of expertise gives them a lens as to what the pain points are and the challenges that might be solved by tech.”
The elimination of redundancies, instead of being viewed as an eradication of services, can instead be seen as a way to open up new opportunities.
“Automating work tasks either completely to make workers redundant or partially so they can do their work more efficiently or inexpensively, that means that … workers can be more available to take on other things,” Rout said. “Social things, higher-level creative or engaging things. Automation and robotics are definitely going to disrupt the workforce but it’s possible the impact may take the shape of a … reallocation of labour rather than [a reduction] of workers.” •
