According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) could generate 11 percent more jobs in the textile and garment manufacturing sectors and 18 percent more jobs in the information technology-business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) industry in Punjab by 2025, compared to business-as-usual (BAU) growth rates.
The Bank conducted the study Assessing the Implications of Industry 4.0 on Jobs and Skills in Central Asian High-Growth Industries, which aims to capture the expected transformations in jobs, tasks, and skills, as well as outline recommendations for policy to prepare individuals for future jobs, especially in the post-COVID-19 world.
The report further revealed that the analysis suggests that the implementation of 4IR technologies can result in high-quality employment for workers if strong policies encouraging enterprises to embrace 4IR and worker reskilling are adopted.
Moreover, by 2025, the implementation of 4IR could generate 11% more jobs than business-as-usual (BAU) growth rates in the textile and garment manufacturing industry, and 18% more jobs in the IT-BPO industry.
To realise these benefits, regulations that encourage enterprises to use 4IR technologies and raise knowledge of the digital tools available must be enacted.
It also indicated that workers in manual tasks are more likely to be displaced, whereas employment increases are projected in technical areas, with more than 70% of textile and garment businesses anticipating the share of technical roles to expand by 2025.
Thus, this implies that existing systems for recognising prior learning should be enhanced. Because of the limited female labour involved in the textile and garment manufacturing sector, job benefits from 4IR will mostly benefit male workers, as one-third of garment workers in Pakistan are already female.
To more fairly spread the benefits of 4IR, inclusive 4IR reskilling programmes would need to be implemented.
However, to