Asia's workers will benefit from new technologies, but government action is also needed: ADB study

MANILA, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Technological advances have transformed the two billion workers in Asian labor market, helping create 30 million jobs annually in industry and services over the last 25 years, driving increases in productivity and wages, and reducing poverty, says a new report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) released on Wednesday.

New research on how technology affects jobs, the subject of the special theme chapter in the Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2018 report, points out that while some of the region's jobs will be eliminated through automation, countervailing forces will more than compensate against job losses.

ADO is ADB's flagship economic publication.

"ADB's latest research shows that, on the whole, countries in Asia will fare well as new technology is introduced into the workplace, improving productivity, lowering production costs, and raising demand," said ADB's Chief Economist Yasuyuki Sawada.

"To ensure that everyone can benefit from new technologies, policymakers will need to pursue education reforms that promote lifelong learning, maintain labor market flexibility, strengthen social protection systems, and reduce income inequality," he said.

ADB research shows that even in the face of advances in areas such as robotics and artificial intelligence, there are compelling reasons to be optimistic about the region's job prospects.

It says new technologies often automate only some tasks of a job, not the whole. Moreover, job automation goes ahead only where it is both technically and economically feasible.

ADB's analysis of employment changes in 12 economies in developing Asia from 2005 to 2015 strongly supports the idea that rising domestic demand more than compensates for job losses associated with technological advances.

Further, analysis of a broad array of data shows that many new job titles have arisen in ICT (information and communications technology), and new types of jobs will arise in healthcare and education, as well as in finance, insurance, and real estate.

The report acknowledges that advances in areas such as robotics and artificial intelligence pose challenges for workers.

"Jobs that require repetitive, routine tasks and workers who do not have the education or training to move easily to other occupations, may face slow growth in wages. This would exacerbate income inequality in the region," the report says. Enditem