The Fourth Industrial Revolution, setting in across the world bringing about a new order dominated by technology, could well leave its impact, sooner or later, on Bangladesh even if it would opt to stay out of it. Bangladesh should, therefore, align itself towards the shift while there is still time as graduation of society into another industrial revolution will come with job losses. The report of a study on the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on workers and employment and the need for inclusive polices, made public in a symposium in Dhaka on November 16, fears that the automation that the revolution would bring about could displace 60 per cent of the work force in the apparel and the textile sector in Bangladesh from their traditional role by 2041. What is good about it is that it might create a significant number of new types of jobs in the sector. Yet, as the study shows, up to half a million jobs at the operator level in the apparel and textile sectors would be at risk. About 10,000 positions at the mid-level such as floor supervisors and pattern makers and 10,000 more positions that require high skills such as fashion designers, computer-aided design and manufacturing operators would also be at risk.
The machine-to-human work ration is reported to have been at 44:66 but it is feared that the ratio would reach 57:43 by 2035. The study report also highlights that job loss because of automation by way of the Fourth Industrial Revolution would cut across five major industries 鈥� the apparel and the furniture sector with a projected job loss by a half, the agro-food processing industry with a reduction in job by 40 per cent, the leather sector by 35 per cent and the tourism sector by 20 per cent. The report says that automation of the apparel and the textile sector is creating new jobs that combine technology with traditional manufacturing processes. Jobs in customer services, retail checkout, data entry, assembly lines and translation are increasingly replaced with technology. And, prominent emerging occupations include professionals skilled in computer-aided processes, quality control, training, automated inspection and handling. Artificial neural network experts, robot operators, numerical controllers, enterprise resource planning experts would also be in high demand. All this shows an urgent need for the government to buckle down to work to scale up the skills of workers and their re-employment in view of both short- and long-term risks of the new industrial wave.
The government should, in such a situation, work out plans to scale up the skills of workers and re-employ them to head off the impact of the job loss that the automation coming up with the Fourth Industrial Revolution could cause. It should involve workers, trade unions and civil society actors in planning. More important, it should execute the plans for an effective result.