What is Industrial Revolution 4.0?

Industrial Revolution 4.0

Industry 4.0 refers to the fourth industrial revolution related to manufacturing and chain production. It is driven by breakthroughs in digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, the IoT, Big Data etc.

The Drivers of Change:

• Technological breakthroughs: New technological innovations such as Big Data, 3-D printing, artificial intelligence and robotics is bringing transformative impact on the nature work.
• Demographic Changes: the world’s population is ageing, putting pressure on business, social institutions and economies. The shortage of a human workforce in a number of rapidly-ageing economies has necessitated automation.
• Rapid urbanisation: The UN projects that by 2050, the world’s urban population will increase by some 72%. Rapidly growing cities have become drivers of a new industrial revolution.
• Shifts in global economic power: Power shifting between developed and developing countries with a large working-age population will attract investments and become a driving force for the future of work.

• Recent Trends of Employment in India: •       Continued Presence of Informal Economy: Nearly 90% of India’s workforce belongs to the informal sector. •       Contractualization of employment: The share of contract workers in total employment in India increased from 15.5% in 2000-01 to 27.9% in 2015-16. The share of directly hired workers fell from 61.2% to 50.4% over the same period. •       Gig Economy: It is characterised by short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs. It often involves connecting with customers through an online platform. Example: Delivery boys of app-based food, consultants, bloggers. In India, there are about 3 million gig workers — temporary workers including independent contractors, online platform workers, contract firm workers and on-call workers.

• Resource scarcity and climate change: According to the report Global Trends 2030, demand for energy and water is forecast to increase by 50% and 40% respectively by 2030. Jobs in alternative energy, new engineering processes, product design and waste management and re-use will be created.

Challenges to the Future of Work: Industry 4.0

• Low Job Creation: Job creation has not been sufficient to absorb the growth in the number of people seeking jobs. As of 2016, there were some 198 million jobless people globally who have been actively seeking employment
• Poor Quality Employment: Globally, nearly 43% of employed people were in own-account or contributing family work which is often characterized by low pay, informality and limited social security.
• Income inequality: ILO observes that although workers have become increasingly productive, the benefits of their work have increasingly accrued to capital income and to those at the top of the income distribution.
• Gender Pay gap: Though female labour force participation has increased the gender pay gap remains a major concern with women still being paid 20% less than men.
• Digital Divide: Only 53.6% of all households have internet access. In emerging countries, the share is only 15%. Given the rapid technological advancements, digital divide remains a key challenge for skill development and employment opportunities.
• Impact of Technology on Employment: There are fears that technological development will lead to job destruction. Automation could be harmful for labour-intensive industries in India such as textiles, finance, construction, hospitality, travel, tourism, media, electronics, mining, agriculture, transportation and entertainment.
  • The Indian ICT sector is susceptible to AI/robots replacing workers in its major IT export markets.
  • The retail sector, the largest employer of lower skill youth, is job shedding as e-retail accelerates and human jobs in logistics, warehousing and delivery services are being robotised.