The Minister of Labour, Thulas Nxesi, says technological changes cannot be stopped but rather managed to not disrupt the economic lives of workers.
Nxesi says while the Fourth Industrial Revolution is unavoidable, the 4IR is not all about technology.
Some banking sector employees recently attempted to embark on a nationwide strike as their jobs are at stake due to the introduction of more advanced banking for clients using technology.
Nxesi emphasised that the re-skilling of workers who will be affected by technological changes should be one of the central elements to the 4IR.
“Let’s have a common understanding of what the 4IR means because I don’t think it just talks about technological change. Technological change has been there and continues to be there. But I think there is an issue now of robotics. There is an issue of digitisation, of automation – call it whatever. But the reality is, you can’t stop technological change – it’s going to come. But you can manage it so that the way it’s going to disrupt our economic lives, it’s going to disrupt out social lives, manage it in such a way that we talk about what are the alternatives for those workers,” says Nxesi.
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