Technological Advances Will Eliminate 75 Million Jobs By 2022

JAKARTA - All countries in the world, including Indonesia, are entering the era of technological progress. Most of the activities are carried out in cyberspace, the COVID-19 pandemic also encourages people to carry out activities digitally. However, this is a threat because it can cause the loss of a job at the company.

Deputy for Human Resources, Technology and Information at the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) Alex Denni said, 10 years ago, only two of the world's 10 largest companies were technology-based. However, 10 years later out of 10 companies only two are not technology based. According to him, how fast technology is changing the world.

"We know Facebook is the largest company in the world but has no content. Airbnb is the biggest accommodation company but has no rooms, Grab doesn't have a motorbike but is the biggest transportation company. These are phenomena that we have seen," he said, in a virtual discussion, Monday, September 14th.

Furthermore, Alex said, these technological advances will cause the loss of 75 million jobs by 2022. In particular, for jobs that are easily replaced with technology.

"There is a threat of jobs that will be lost, 75 million jobs that are routine, transactional, administrative jobs that are easily replaced by technology will be lost," he said.

The missing jobs include postal staff, data entry, accountants, administration and secretaries, customer service (CS), factory and assembly workers, business services and administrative managers, auditors, operations managers, and stock checkers.

"The jobs that will be lost, if last year I was at Jasa Marga, for example friends at toll booths becoming CS, toll ticket collectors and others, will automatically be at a point where technology is easy to replace," he said.

However, said Alex, even though it will eliminate 75 million jobs, technology will also create jobs that are much larger than the number of jobs that have been lost.

"Usually there are far more jobs that will be born than lost. 75 million jobs will be lost while 133 million jobs will come," he said.