News about companies cutting down on their employees is putting us to concern everyday. Not all of these news are true though but even a false alarm is creating panic, especially in India, for we Indians sincerely believe that there is no tomorrow if we do not have a job.
But job losses are not something which is only related to Donald Trump's hyper-love for his motherland United States which he wants to make great again. Even in the US, there are job cuts. In fact, job cuts were more than a normal in the West than in India even when Trump was nowhere near the scene. And automation is a big reason for that.
John Maynard Keynes' prophecy is becoming a truth
It is actually time for renowned economist John Maynard Keynes's prophecy to come true. In his famous essay 'Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchilden' penned in 1930, Maynard had predicted that human beings' working hours would eventually get reduced to 15 hours a week and the future generations would have so much free time that they would struggle to spend them.
We are seeing those times that Keynes had predicted long ago. And it is not just ultra-nationalism which is set to deprive of our jobs but the trend of automation. A couple of months ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had opined that increasing use of technology and robots will not just take away jobs, it will also raise a question over the human beings' sense of purpose.
Not just jobs, we need to think why we exist?
This, thus, takes us to the question: How to make ourselves relevant in the days to come? In India, job is such an end-all purpose of life that our lifelong education is ultimately aligned with getting a worthy job. Earning a degree in engineering is considered the biggest move towards living a life of worth. But, what if the job we land on using that sole qualification is lost permanently?
This is a time to rethink our purpose of life. There is a need for a revolutionary change in the way to treat education and job if we want to keep pace with changing times. It is important for it involves our existence.
Automation is also creating new jobs while destroying many; are we ready?
As we said, more than Trump's ultra-nationalism, it is automation which is changing the employment world forever. Technology, while eating up jobs on one hand, is also creating new kinds of opportunities on the other but the challenge lies in the fact that we hardly have the required skills to fit ourselves to those new jobs.
So, the only solution lies now is to change the purpose and aim of our education and training from the very onset. It will not only make us fit for a dynamic employment world but also give us the confidence that there is a purpose why we live.
Our ancestors were more dynamic than us even if there was no technology
Our ancestors were better qualified than us in that respect. Even if there was no technology then, there were lesser manual job prospects too. The more amateurish eras with little innovations had made people travel that extra mile towards multi-tasking to make life comfortable for them. A single individual was seen inventing so many things, even the most basic ones, because he/she felt the need and hence strived for an invention.
Education and self-training were wider as tailor-made convenience was less. We have not seen such lives because we have technology to cater to us. But technology, as an objective force, has now started to threaten our livelihoods and we are feeling helpless. Take a cue from our ancestors to teach ourselves as well as our successors on how to prepare ourselves for life-long learning. That one degree of qualification is no safety net anymore.
It's time to come out of that complacent and stagnant mind. Life will move forward again.
