Four in 10 (40%) young workers believe their current job could be replaced by automation within 10 years, according to a report from software company Infosys.
The research, Amplifying Human Potential: Education and Skills for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, commissioned by Infosys and conducted by independent research agency Future Foundation, polled 1,000 young people per country aged between 16 and 25. It polled people in Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, South Africa, the UK and the US.
On average, 42% of the respondents felt their education did not prepare them for their jobs, and in the UK and Australia 77% had to learn new skills themselves in order to carry out their roles.
Around 80% of young people across all markets agreed that continuous development of skills is essential to success at work. Young men, across all countries, were found to be more likely to have existing IT knowledge and the desire to advance these skills. But in some emerging markets such as India and China, and in the US as well, the gender gap was far less pronounced than in developed economies such as France, Germany and the UK.
Vishal Sikka, CEO and managing director of Infosys, said education has a role to play in developing an interest and aptitude in technology. “Young people around the world can see that new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, will enable them to reimagine the possibilities of human creativity, innovation and productivity,” he said.
“To empower these young people to thrive in this great digital transformation, our education systems must bring more focus to lifelong learning, experimentation and exploration – in addition to bringing computer science and technology more fundamentally into the curriculum."
“Every one of us can reimagine our circumstances, innovate and create, but our education systems must instil new ways of thinking, which include finding the most important problems to solve, collaborating across diverse groups, and learning from quick failures so that each one of us can find our own meaningful, purposeful work,” he added.
