Study considers finance industry, manufacturing
major new study considers the risks and rewards of automation and calls for solutions to respond to the needs of both businesses and people.
The report from the Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship highlights that the growth of automation must be managed to allow businesses to benefit while keeping people in mind.
Sean Mullin, Executive Director of BII+E says businesses face a dual challenge of remaining competitive while ensuring the most vulnerable workers don’t get left behind.
"Ultimately, firm and worker success are closely intertwined; neither can succeed without the other," he said.
The report says that if businesses lag behind their competition on adopting technology advances, it will create risk for both business and workers.
But it also acknowledges the potential disruption to the labour market as automation increases with 42% of the Canadian workforce at risk of being affected in the next 10-20 years. Part of the planning for this is retraining of workers and opportunities to transition to other jobs.
Workers in retail (except management), admin, food service, cashiers, and truck drivers; are most at risk of their roles being automated. Nurses and teachers are at low risk of being automated.
For senior financial managers, the risk of automation is higher (8.8%) despite just 24% of this role being considered as able to be automated.
However, the big risk is for financial brokerage managers. While just 16% of their tasks can be automated, there is an 81% chance this will happen according to the report.
The full report is available at brookfieldinstitute.ca.
