Fourth Industrial Revolution should be human centred: Nxesi

Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi says the fourth Industrial Revolution should not just be about technological development but also about what he calls, human centredness.

He says re-skilling should be the one of the main priorities as organisations embark on meeting the demands of the 4IR.

The minister says retrenchments should be the last option. Nxesi was speaking in an interview with SABC news in Parliament.

“This 4IR must not just be a technical thing. It must be human centred. It must have that human element, because you are dealing with human beings. They are not just dealing with objects. Therefore that element is very important, that is why we are saying it must be accepted that it’s going to disrupt the social lives of the people, – the economic lives. What alternatives are we putting in place for those people who are going to be directly impacted upon? Hence we are emphasising the issue of up skilling. Some of them are going to be up skilled to be able to be absorbed into the new technologies. Some of them retrained and so on and diverted into other areas. That’s what we are talking about. We are talking about human centeredness.”