Monday, November 07, 2016

Future of work in NZ

Continuing on the theme of the future of work as per previous posts - international trends, nature of work into the future, how education may contribute and critique.

Here is a 2015 report from the NZ and Australian Chartered Accountants perspective as prepared by the NZ Institute of Economics Research (NZIER).

Notes taken while browsing the report :

Over the next 2 decades over 800,000 jobs (46%) in danger of being automated - this is now an often quoted figure by both current NZ government an opposition.

There is some good news, the economy is comparatively flexible due to light regulation, comparatively low deficit, high resilience and although population is aging, the impact is moderate compared to other OECD countries.

There is a threat as NZ has a large number of service sector occupations / jobs many of which are threatened by disruptive technologies.

In general, technology displaces certain types of jobs but also tends to create a whole new range of jobs. New jobs are invented for entirely new types of work. Jobs may become more creative / interesting.

Concerns include impact of automation on large sectors of blue and white collar employment; high skilled work may become replaced by lower paying service industry jobs or permanent unemployment;NOTE - the education system is currently not agile enough to cope with shift.

Jobs at risk are in transportation, logistics, office and admin support and production labour. In NZ, the occupations are most risk are labourers, machinery operators and drivers, clerical and admin workers, sales workers and some technical /trades occupations.


Three industries spotlights used to illustrate the disruptions – Smart cars, energy transformation and radical extension of life.

A wider overview also available from NZIER insight paper - titled Robot Nation: The disruptive impact of disruptive technologies on Kiwis.

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