About 4 to 5 million Filipinos need to reskill themselves by 2030 if they do not want to become extinct and be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI).
That represents about 10 percent of the total workforce as of September.
Jon Canto, associate partner and interim managing partner at McKinsey, also stressed the need for the Philippines to prepare for the future of work especially as the pandemic has accelerated digitalization, remote work and automation particularly for jobs in the information technology-business process management (IT-BPM).
At the International Innovation Summit on Nov. 18, 2021, Canto said the growth of the IT-BPM sector in the Philippines at 5 percent has outpaced that of the GDP despite the pandemic.
He said the country will sustain such growth driven by operations, finance and banking, as well as healthcare, gaming and animation.
Canto said based on its research, 50 percent of all work technically could be automated and based on estimate, 375 million or almost 400 million workers globally between now and 2030 will need to be reskilled or repurposed.
That is equivalent to 15 to 17 percent of the global workforce.
“If we apply that to the Philippines without adjusting for the particular roles or the potential delay in the impact of automation in the country, that still means 4 to 5 million that need reskilling and retraining purposes. (That’s) quite a big number,” said Canto, noting though that this “doesn’t mean that it’s (a) loss.”
“This is actually an opportunity. There can be this scenario where there’s a net positive amount of jobs,” Canto added.
About 70 percent of jobs are lost to automation, mostly in customer service or customer-facing industries.
But Canto said jobs are growing in some sectors like healthcare not just because of the pandemic but because populations are aging and consumer capability to pay are also increasing in Southeast Asia.
Canto sees opportunities from science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) as well as transportation especially with the advent of electric vehicles and future mobility.
“There’s a lot more jobs there than we originally thought,” he added.
Canto cited the benefits of future of work where if done right,.
Citing a survey of global BPO players, majority of respondents plan to keep 30 to 60 percent of their workforce remote.
“There’s an element of productivity, agility in the way we make decisions, better value proposition, talent, and retaining talent. We’re more diverse and inclusive because we can hire anywhere, we don’t need to hire (just from) Metro Manila… remote work this may decline after COVID subsides but the concept and the principle in the operating model is we need to decide on how to stay remote. And this will impact our competitiveness, “ he said.
Canto in stressing the need to retrain workers globally added: “In the Philippines this will happen just like it happens everywhere else. And this huge reskilling across key jobs … demand will outstrip supply and some jobs 1.5 times some jobs 4x,” he added. – Irma Isip
