As technologies become more sophisticated, they will exercise more incremental influence on business and society. Already, we have seen during the last two decades as to how disruptive technologies have been transforming agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, financial services and more. US based Mckinsey Global Initiative believes that the impact of disruptive technologies will be immense that will have far-reaching consequences in the coming decades.

In its survey report sometimes back that covered the automation of knowledge work, advanced robotics, 3D Printing and cloud technologies, it has identified twelve disruptive technologies that would possess the capabilities to make the greatest economic impact and also cause jobs disruption by 2025. They include Mobile Internet, Automation of knowledge workers (Artificial Intelligence (AI)), the Internet of Things, Cloud Technology, Advanced Robotics, Autonomous and near-autonomous vehicles, Next-Generation Genomics, Energy Storage, Advanced Materials, 3D Printing, Advanced Oil and Gas Explorations and Renewable Energy. All of these could have an economic impact of more than $14 trillion annually in 2025. If such is the case, then what about its impact on employment trends and jobs?

According to the authors of the hot-selling book ‘iDisrupted’, John Straw and Michael Baxter, “Technology can be a force for creating more wealth for all. But at the same time there is a danger that instead it will permanently influence employment trends and devastate the jobs market. The final result of its real impact will partially depend on the decisions made by the policy makers over the next few years.”

Some technology experts believe that as computers become more sophisticated they will find it relatively easy to perform things that humans find it hard to do, but will find it a struggle to do things that humans find easy to do. They further believe that disruptive technologies within the next 10 to 15 years could soon replace many white-collar jobs including such monotonous jobs like accountancy, actuarial work, legal work, etc and possibly even general practice in medicine.

Impact on Employment Trends:
Technological progress can be a double-edged sword in the sense that while they act as a catalyst for economic growth they have the potential to act as a disruptive force for labor markets as well as established business models. On the one hand, they could create new markets and business practices as well as new product infrastructure and varied labour skills, but at the same time, they could affect existing firms in established markets as well as labour market, incomes of workers and eventually, income distribution. 

Experts believe that the influence of disruptive technologies in manufacturing vide robots and 3d printing will perhaps be overshadowed by advances in Artificial Intelligence that will have the potential of displacing workers in the services sector at an even more rapid pace and with more significant consequences. They attribute this likely fact to the digital technologies meeting or surpassing the capabilities of humans even in tasks which were impossible to automate earlier like those jobs involving communication or pattern recognition in uncertain or changing environments.

Two MIT professors, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee have predicted that machines will become smarter and will displace workers from jobs at a pace more rapid than the past. Not only will the smart machines be able to do things like driving cars, participate in and win quiz shows, serve customer online and answer customer queries, etc, but will also spawn a new generation of billionaires who may employ fewer people.  The progress will be so fast that they will create a huge wedge between job creation and productivity growth.

The following forecasts are likely to have considerable effect on future employment trends:

• Rapid advances in AI and in particular in pattern recognition, mean that computers will increasingly take over the roles that have traditionally been the preserve of the middle class. 
• Algorithms is already analyzing financial data and preparing accounts and tax returns, displacing accountants in companies in developed countries. In near future, higher-level bankers including loan officers could be replaced by automated systems.
• Journalist’s jobs could soon be automated using machine learning tools like narrative science that creates natural language news stories from analyzing data. Financial and sports journalists who rely heavily on data and numbers could be replaced first followed by other journalist categories.
• Human Resources including headhunting and hiring are already affected by data mining that uses algorithms to sort out resumes to find the perfect candidates. Soon, other tasks like collection and filing of paperwork, advising employees about benefits, etc, could all be automated.
• Teaching jobs too are at peril. Algorithms could be used to customize learning to individual pupils based on their progress and understanding; this can be more effective than human teaching.
• Automation in combination with Internet of Things will hit jobs in manufacturing industries as well as hotels and restaurants, wholesale and retail trade and construction. Foxconn, a firm headquartered in Taiwan that manufactures iPhones and employs more than a million workers in China, announced recently its plans to have robots complete 70 percent of its assembly-line work by 2018.
• As autonomous vehicle technology becomes more sophisticated and a reality on the roads, then there will be no need for a human operator. This would leave taxi / cab drivers, bus drivers, truck drivers, and other kinds of drivers jobless.

In recent years, there have been dramatic changes in business models. Newer ones that have come up are disrupting entire industries like in the case of Uber with Taxi Cabs, Netflix with satellite and cable television and above all, Skype with telecommunications. These developments have had a dramatic effect on jobs with the majority of the workforce out of jobs. Workers have found themselves less well-placed to retrain or retool themselves while assistance programs have proven to be largely ineffective.

Mention must also be made that some jobs that require creative, social skills and human touch are not anytime likely to be replaced soon. But herein the question is whether they are likely to be enough of such jobs in the future to make up for those that are likely to be lost.

Skills Relevant In the Future:

As disruptive technologies automate many of today’s jobs that humans are paid to do, the very nature of work will undergo a dramatic change, with an indelible impact on jobs and employment trends. Companies will redefine many roles and business processes affecting workers of all skill levels. This is already happening in the developed world and to a lesser extent in the developing world.

By 2020, disruptive technologies will cost nearly 5.1 million jobs in fifteen of the world’s largest economies, including the US, China, India, UK, Japan, Turkey, South Africa, Brazil, etc, - all of which account for nearly 65 percent of the global workforce. As per a World Economic Forum (WEF) survey report titled ‘The Future of Jobs’, the jobs that are most likely to be at risk are ones that can be automated easily; this include jobs like office and administrative - most performed by female employees -, architecture, engineering, computer sciences, manufacturing and mathematical jobs.

Future Skills:
What skills would exactly be relevant in another decade and beyond?

MIT professors, Brynjolfsson and McAfee have forecast that the prosperous workers of the future would be in race with the machines, complementing them by providing personal interactions and decisions that only humans are capable of doing. On the other hand, David Autor and David Dorn, authors of the popular book, “The Growth of Low Skill Service Jobs & the Polarization of the US Labour Market”, suggest that “the middle-class jobs that survive will combine routine technical tasks with abstract and manual tasks in which workers will have a comparative advantage in the form of inter-personal interaction, adaptability and problem-solving.”

Both these predictions resonate with those of a Silicon Valley think-tank, ‘Institute For The Future’ that has forecasted that the rise of smart machines would require the assistance of workers with skills like sense-making, novel and adaptive thinking and social intelligence. Also the ability of workers and businesses alike to use or manipulate technology effectively will determine their level of prosperity, no matter what their skill-level is likely to be in the future.

Time to Act Is Now:
Governments across the world will be increasingly confronted with the overpowering effect of disruptive technologies on employment trends and jobs resulting in displaced workers and increased demands for assistance.

The following out-of-the-box solutions are the need of the hour:

• Reform education sector in line with prevalent trends and produce workers with the needed skills. For this the education system needs to be more flexible and adaptive incorporating latest technologies.
• Teaching needs to be made more technology-oriented. For this the teachers need to be given the appropriate training, techniques and tools. 
• Skills development should match the specific needs of various jobs. For instance, interaction and service jobs require social skills as well as technical skills, with varying levels based on individual capacity and interest.

Lulled into today’s trends to offshore service or manufacturing, India faces in some ways greater risks from disruptive technologies. If the Indian workforce is not equipped with the requisite skills soon, then they risk losing out on the jobs of the future.

Conclusion:
Earlier centuries of technological progress did not create mass unemployment as was anticipated. But that is bound to change in the coming century, with disruptive technologies led by the Internet, Robotics and Automation, all of which are forecast to replace much of today’s tasks as they evolve and become more sophisticated.
 
That is the reality and the employment trends of the coming years will be largely unpredictable for disruptive technologies will evolve faster than that can be anticipated.