The pandemic has caused much disruption to the global economy. However, one thing that it did not affect was the advancement of technology and digitalization. As the pandemic continued on, organizations the world over began to accelerate their efforts to digitalize, as the solutions it offered allowed them to overcome the many challenges posed by the global health crisis.
Unfortunately, not everyone is keen on the idea of such a rapid adoption of digital solutions. In NTUC LearningHub’s recently launched Emerging Jobs and Skills Report, up to four out of five (81 percent) of Singapore employees say that they are concerned about the impact of digitalization on jobs and roles in their respective industries. Many have quoted the ‘need for new skills to stay relevant’ as one of the primary drivers for this concern. In addition, up to 40 percent of employees surveyed expressed fear regarding not being able to adapt to the new skills required. 31 percent also feared that they will be replaced by those who are already familiar with the new skills.
For the most part, the vast majority of employees (93 percent) do believe that there is a rather desperate need to upgrade their skills in order to avoid becoming irrelevant and uncompetitive in the job market. The top three reasons cited by employees for upskilling are to have ‘better career progression opportunities’ (66 percent), ‘better pay’ (58 percent), and ‘better match with existing skillsets’ (50 percent).
Employers were also surveyed for the NTUC LearningHub report. However, of those surveyed, up to 57 percent believe that the main impact of digitalization on the workforce is the need to reskill and upskill their employees in order to meet the new skill demands. 54 percent of employers said that another big impact will be a drop in time spent by employees doing repetitive work, which can be left to autonomous processes. 54 percent also said that employees will have to take on hybrid roles, utilizing a mix of several different skill sets to reach optimal productivity.
