Automation and digitalisation and will displace some jobs in UK industry in the short term, but will lead to a net gain in jobs in the longer term.
This is the view of Gambica, the trade body representing the instrumentation, control, automation and laboratory industry in the UK.
Gambica was a key contributor to the recent government-backed Industrial Digitalisation review, which reported in the autumn as the Made Smarter review.
Outlining the Gambica view, based on a range of research, chief executive Steve Brambley (pictured) said that automation and digitalisation could be introduced alongside a human worker to increase productivity and quality of output. Jobs created as a result of digitalisation would tend to be better paid than those they replaced, and the UK was well placed to benefit.
“Robots tend to replace tasks rather than whole jobs,” he said. Research in the US had predicted that though up to 47% of jobs could be affected in some way by automation and digitalisation, only 9% were in danger of replacement.
Management jobs which were unpredictable by nature were at the end of the spectrum least susceptible to being automated, with predictable physical work being the most susceptible to replacement.
However, Mr Brambley said, any short term displacement of jobs by digitalisation would be more than made up for in the longer term. The newly created jobs would command better salaries than those they replaced.
They would tend to be “digitally skilled” jobs that did not previously exist. They would be more productive and competitive, leading to growth. A trend towards localised, flexible manufacturing, closer to the market and with shorter lead times, would lead to “reshoring”, in which jobs previously outsourced overseas would return. Further jobs would be created in the supply chain, and a trend to sell products as a service with a performance guarantee would create further service-based roles.
He concluded: “The UK is well placed to benefit from the impact of digitalisation. Doing nothing is not an option.”