Automation to impact agriculture, manufacturing and construction sectors the most

Findings of the research exploring the state of automation and the future of work across 12 Asia Pacific Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated (APAC) countries suggests India isn’t prepared for automation.

Agriculture, manufacturing, and construction are identified as high-risk industries due to the large number of employment generated by these sectors. India is ranked 5th highest in terms of the impact from automation and 9th in terms of the level of preparedness for this impact.
 
The findings are from ‘The Future of Work is Now: Is APAC Ready?’ research study by Deloitte, commissioned by Autodesk Foundation. The research explores the potential adverse impacts of automation on workers in the Asia Pacific, including Australia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The report highlights that COVID-19 has greatly accelerated the adoption of automation across the world and close to half of all businesses intend to increase their adoption of robotic process automation over the next year.

“Automation creates opportunities for new, more meaningful types of work as it replaces mundane or repetitive manual tasks, but the state of preparedness of countries and industries will determine whether they benefit from these advances. Improving digital literacy, supporting disadvantaged workers, and putting in place the right infrastructure and skills will help create new roles that workers can transition into,” says Rajeev Mittal, Regional Director, India & SAARC, Autodesk.

With a high proportion of routine and manual tasks and low year-on-year global productivity growth (1%, over the past 20 years to 2017), India’s construction industry is the most likely to be one of the hardest hits by automation across all countries in APAC. India’s construction sector is the fifth most vulnerable, ahead of Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Myanmar and the Philippines, respectively. India’s mining sector has the second-highest risk of impact from automation after Bangladesh.

The sector's vulnerability to automation stems from its relatively low skill requirements, its high degree of routine and manual tasks, and the use of a direct physical activity to operate machinery. Mining comprises less than 1% of the workforce in 10 out of 12 countries analysed, suggesting that automation in mining is well underway.

And on the agriculture front, the increased demand for food and sustainable farming methods is expected to lead to higher adoption of automation and digital solutions. Technologies such as AI can also help reduce spoilage, increase productivity, and add $9 billion to farmer incomes.
               
Identifying the challenges, the report suggests increasing awareness of the need to adapt, funding industry-specific programmes for digital transformation to help smaller businesses to access new, digital technologies and investing in Invest in learning programmes to help disadvantaged workers and build resilience, as the three key steps to address the risks of automation.

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