Summary: The Fourth Industrial Revolution

The fourth industrial revolution is to bring about significant economic transformations, potential changes in the workforce and in labor practices, for which governments will need to account. These circumstances will give rise to both opportunities for generating new wealth, and risks related to rising inequality, due to the use of artificial intelligence and the robotization of labor on a scale unseen in history. Governments need to give serious thoughts to what a robotized economy is to resemble. With rapid developments in technology, it is clear that there will be significant impacts on the economy, on the labor force, and on the ways people work within various sectors of activities. The concept of the demographic time bomb, which has now been debated for years, suggests that as the population ages, there is not going to be enough workers to sustain high economic growth. Countries may even experience labor shortages. Chan (2016), in an article for The Telegraph, relays traditional concerns about the ageing demographics of developed countries. She concludes her article by stating: ‘Demographic decline in advanced economies is one of the biggest challenges facing the world this century, and solutions will take at least a generation. But without change, countries may find themselves

The fear that robots will replace people is real, and may happen across spheres of economic activities. This research note does not attempt to determine which professions will thrive, which will diminish, or which will completely disappear as we move forward. However, there is agreement amongst the literature that both blue and white-collar jobs will be threatened by the employment of robots. In the near future, robots will be able to do many jobs as effectively as humans