Which sectors were affected by the industrial revolution 4.0

In the textile and garment industry, cutting and sewing can be substitutes. Photo: Phan Thu.

Low skill workers are threatened

The Industrial Revolution 4.0 is blurring the gap between the real world and the virtual world through advanced technology, incessant innovation, and creation. This revolution affects all economic and social fields, from industry, agriculture, banking, transportation, textiles, and garment… to the enterprises and localities.

"This is an opportunity that Vietnam must catch up quickly to take advantage of pushing the industrialization and modernization, achieve the goal of becoming an industrial country early in the direction of modern", said Ms. Ho Thi Kim Thoa, the Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade at the "Industrial Revolution 4.0 Forum", taken place on April 11th.

However, according to Mr. Tran Viet Hoa, the Deputy Director of Science and Technology Department (the Ministry of Industry and Trade), with the trend of rapid development and application of artificial intelligence and intelligent robot, the revolutionary industry 4.0 will threaten the low skill labor and some jobs such as the administration job, the office job.

A study of the Oxford University estimated that 47% of current work would be at 75% rate of automation over the next 20 years, mostly, the middle-income jobs and daily office jobs without requiring technical skills.

Meanwhile, according to a report on labor and employment of the General Department of Statistics, over 90% of workers in the processing and manufacture industries are the uncomplicated workers, low labor levels.

"This fact becomes a great challenge in the industrial development policy as well as the human resource development policy of Vietnam in the coming time", Mr.Hoa showed his opinion.

Adding information, Mr. Tran Dinh Thien, Director of the Vietnamese Economic Institute said that according to the statistics, industries linked to the manual labor will be most affected, next will be the industries associated with the automation process.

For example, the textile industry, the machines can replace cutting and sewing. Technology 4.0 can work 24/24 hours without recharging, even can work in "dark" conditions without light, while speed, quality are still be controlled.

Or the electronic assembly industry, robots can be also replaced. Especially, the driving industry, the taxi driver will be the first that can be eliminated quickly from the game in less than 20 years.

The sectors related to human emotion and intuition will be more difficult to replace. For example, artists, doctors, painters, journalists... but they are still able to be replaced. Particularly, "genius" painters can be difficult to replace, while the re-painters will be likely to be replaced immediately.

"Therefore, it is an alarm for Vietnam, because the process and assembly labor remains so much", Mr. Thien commented.

Re-structure education

Talking about the necessary and sufficient conditions for Vietnam to "take over" the industrial revolution 4.0, Mr. Thien found: "We are lacking all things, only determination is always full, but being determined to do something fail"

But, the lack of necessary and sufficient factors becomes the advantage. Because from ancient to present, Vietnam is considered intelligent, "creep" to find eccentric for groping and creating, and "this is an advantage".

"To do so, we have to restructure education and training right now, following the reform logic of nearly 20 years is impossible. As I know, there has been no sudden and unusual change in education at the present, still thinking about the degree, associated with "envelopism", going forward with the tenure thought is extremely difficult", Mr. Thien said.

According to Mr. Hoa, this fact calls for restructuring the labor market that linking closely with the restructuring process of the industry, namely: Building the environment and position to work for high-level labor; Reforming the education and training in the direction of standardization and modernization; Undertaking retraining and supplementary training for the low-skilled workforce, prioritizing the knowledge and skills related to the application of information technology, automation, ability of information management and analysis…

"The labor market that more than 90% of the labor force in the industrial sector is uncomplicated and low skill, requires the Government has a specific support program, focusing on improving skills and qualification, intensive knowledge for this group", Mr. Hoa proposed.

Along with the issue of education, a specialist also emphasized that in order to apply technology 4.0, people must have the new wisdom to participate in the production process. Because every single person must have creativity in a creative economy. The poor countries or later countries have often low creative capacity, use low intelligent. This is the most fundamental challenge of the later countries, even they are marginalized in the development of all humanity.