Business Report writes that 80% of SA’s workforce believes the current job market is tougher than it was 10 years ago and just over 20% of workers believe their current skills will keep them employed over the next decade.
This was indicated in a new study conducted by MasterStart, an online learning solutions provider for academic institutions. Its ‘MasterStart South African Workforce Barometer’ survey, was based on a sample group of over 1,000 people across varying demographics and industries. The research found that just 23.8% of working South Africans believed their current skills would keep them employed in ten years’ time. With the Fourth Industrial Revolution accelerating the pace of change in the world of work, most South Africans were looking to ‘future-proof’ their careers and believed lifelong learning was the key to retaining relevancy. Age was referenced most frequently as a barrier to future employment, especially for those over 50, while lack of skills in younger people was seen as the most prohibiting factor. Just under half felt they had been held back by lack of skills. Some 30% of participants in IT and tech were completely confident their skills would survive the ten year test, while those in other industries were noticeably less secure. Close to a quarter of respondents felt AI had already impacted their industries, with just 20% saying they were completely comfortable sharing their workload with robots or processes automated by AI. The highest level of unease about this was among 18-24 year-olds.
- Read this report by Joseph Booysen in full at Business Report
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