Are We Losing Human Talent and Brains Over Technology?
All of us are aware of the rapid overtake of technology, Artificial Intelligence, and other Automation trends. While many people believe that businesses will enjoy major profits, reduce their dependency on human resources and generate new employment, many of them are adamant that such ardent dependence on technology will take us nowhere. The future of Automation and AI is encircled by many never-ending debates. It is the utmost need of the hour to sit back and thoroughly analyze where the future of automation will take us ahead in the coming years.
Why Automation is Receiving a Major Backlash?
The foremost impact of Automation we are witnessing is on the employment rates across the world. No sector is left untouched where automation hasn’t caused churn rates and employee firings. Today, every problem has software to solve it! But who will run, implement, re-structure, and develop this software further? Are only the IT minds progressing by leaps and bounds? We are about to find that out next.
As per an article published in Forbes India magazine, job hiring in the IT sector has decimated by a whopping 25 percent as compared to FY22. The biggest tech tycoons of India like Infosys, Wipro, and Accenture to name a few, had a net addition of just 1,940 employees in the third quarter of 2023. The companies are delaying the hiring of new employees while some have offered job positions close to a 50 percent salary cut. Job hiring in the tech sector has drastically dropped by nearly 50 percent on a year-on-year basis. The latest predictions are also surfacing up like: Accenture is planning to vanish 19,000 jobs, Indeed is to lay off 2,200 employees and Amazon is laying more than 9,000 people off, in its second round of job cuts.
So what do these figures about the tech sector firing are telling us?
During the COVID-19 Pandemic, the IT sector saw ambitious rounds of hiring. As everyone wanted to become digitally strong, there was a huge demand for tech professionals, which directly led to bulk hiring. These layoffs are nothing but a form of load-shedding. It is clearly showing that even the tech sector is sailing in a tough boat where even with exemplary education and high-octane experience in their hands, people are intimidated to enter the IT sector amidst this turmoil. What we can truly understand from here is that the future of jobs across every sector is uncertain. Automation is already subduing human workers with robots and AI computers.
What and where is the Solution?
A simple question to ask here is that even if we develop technologically advanced software, we still need human minds and talents to operate these, right? Certainly, AI can do impossible tasks but to nurture AI we need human brains. In these times where Automation is at its extreme, the only solution to save yourself from losing job opportunities is to up-skill your skills. Change is the only constant now and the sooner we understand the essentiality of revamping our technical skills, the better our professional career would be.
Does that mean we need to leave our current domain and switch to IT? No! All you need is to follow this golden mantra. All you have to do is find technical skills that resonate with your existing skill set.
For example, if you’re an accounting professional, you can learn the software that makes accounting visually creative, easier, and more efficient. This way not only you will become an asset for your company but also strengthen the coming years of your career by learning what others haven’t paid attention to. Focus on polishing your attained knowledge with automation and not in a panic look for a career transition. If you have just started learning a skill, then look for strategies through which you can leverage AI and Automation to add positive insights to your talent. We only need the right re-skilling to align with the current norms. Being formulaic won’t work in the future. So don’t sleep on upcoming AI tools if not the whole process of learning AI from scratch!