Prioritise upskilling human resources to tackle 4IR challenges: Experts

Upskilling human resources should be the first plan of action to confront the probable challenges triggered by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), experts have suggested.

They made the suggestion at a workshop held at the commerce ministry auditorium on Tuesday on formulating a plan of actions for facing the probable challenges of 4IR.

Syed Almas Kabir, director of Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce & Industries, and Bangladesh Employers’ Federation, presented the key-note speech in the programme.

The 4IR technologies will easily replace not only manual labour, but also will substitute many knowledge workers, he said.

According to a Bloomberg report, clerks, loan officers, insurance underwriters, paralegals, retail salespersons, etc. may lose their jobs to intelligent machines.

“Upskilling the human resources should be the first plan of action. The unneeded workers must be trained in new technologies and skills,” said Almas Kabir.

He said, “The gameplan should also include reskilling. Not all the redundant employees will be needed to or able to be upskilled.

“It will be necessary to reskill most of them and transfer them to other professions. Displaced garments workers may be reskilled to become nurses and caregivers and so on.”

Besides, according to Kabir, another important national strategy on a planned adoption of 4IR tech is imperative.

A staggered policy for the factory owners could be in place that will prevent them from replacing the entire workforce with industrial robots, he said, adding that the nation will be overwhelmed if there is a sudden mass unemployment.

An expedient and reasonably phased automation policy will ease the problem, he said.

The academia can play a vital role in making Bangladesh a nation of skilled human resources, Kabir suggested.

With the fast-changing demands of the frontier technologies of 4IR, regular and continuous collaborations between academia and industry will bridge the gap between knowledge and skill, and will enable us to reap the demographic dividend, he said. “The year 2023 can be a very productive year for us, if we can take advantage of the new technologies that 4IR offers,”

With the technologies and advancement expected to come with 4IR, Bangladeshi businesses can increase the value of products and services, create new revenues, reduce labour costs, and expand both local and global markets, Kabir also said.

“But first we must acknowledge the challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution, and then embrace them with appropriate preparedness,” he added.

The challenges of 4IR in Bangladesh, where infrastructural and skilled HR supports are inadequate, are complex and intricate. Unfortunately, the arduousness of these challenges is yet to be realised by not only most policymakers, but also by most leaders in the business community.