{"id":17258,"date":"2019-07-19T03:29:42","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T03:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=17258"},"modified":"2019-07-20T08:03:31","modified_gmt":"2019-07-20T08:03:31","slug":"what-amazons-decision-to-retrain-a-third-of-its-employees-means-for-the-future-of-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/what-amazons-decision-to-retrain-a-third-of-its-employees-means-for-the-future-of-work\/","title":{"rendered":"What Amazon’s decision to retrain a third of its employees means for the future of work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott F. Latham<\/a>, University of Massachusetts Lowell<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s announcement<\/a> that it will invest US$700 million to retrain 100,000 employees \u2013 a third of its U.S. workforce \u2013 in new technologies is the latest reminder that the much-heralded future of work<\/a> is well underway.<\/p>\n

Policymakers, analysts and scholars trying to discern the retailer\u2019s motives and objectives chalked it up to a public relations move<\/a> or the natural result of a tight labor market<\/a>. Others deemed it standard retraining and investment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lost in the reaction, however, is what it means for the rest of us workers. As an expert in technology disruption<\/a>, I believe the main message in Amazon\u2019s announcement is clear and indisputable: The jobs of tomorrow will require at least some competency in the STEM fields<\/a> \u2013 science, technology, engineering and math.<\/p>\n

But do we want to leave it to companies like Amazon to take the lead in making sure we\u2019re ready?<\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s rationale<\/h2>\n

Amazon offered, in painstaking detail<\/a>, its rationale for the retraining initiative. Drawing on its own employment data, as well as publicly available labor data, Amazon revealed the fastest-growing technical and non-technical jobs at the company over the past five years.<\/p>\n

The technical jobs were what you might expect, such as data scientist and network development engineer. What intrigued me most, however, were the job descriptions of the supposedly non-technical positions it highlighted, such as program manager, business analyst and marketing professional. These jobs now require a breathtaking degree of fluency in STEM skills.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago, for example, a young individual might have secured a job at an Amazon shipping facility based on physical skills alone or in human resources with a simple undergraduate degree. Today, those same jobs require understanding how to work with a robot<\/a> to move around packages efficiently or use artificial intelligence to sift through resumes.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Soon, house painters may need STEM skills as they learn to work with robots.<\/span>
\nHaye Kesteloo\/Shutterstock.com<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No industry is immune<\/h2>\n

The blurring of technical and non-technical jobs signals a dramatic shift for the entire workforce and will change<\/a> the basic structure and nature of work.<\/p>\n

In the past, the narrative was that STEM jobs offered a more lucrative career path<\/a>. Now, every job is a STEM job, from brick laying<\/a> and nursing<\/a> to radiology<\/a> and house painting<\/a>. You will be hard pressed to find a job in the coming decades that won\u2019t work with a robot or AI or even have one as a manager<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the fastest-growing areas, in fact, is human robot interaction and the development of collaborative robots known as co-bots<\/a>. The point being, humans lucky enough to avoid getting displaced by an AI-powered robot will still need to demonstrate the ability to work alongside or under it.<\/p>\n

As with past industrial revolutions, the future of work \u2013 also known as \u201cindustry 4.0<\/a>\u201d \u2013 is being driven by technology disruption in the form of automation, big data, internet of things, artificial intelligence, blockchain, drones and 5G. Business leaders anticipate that a skills mismatch<\/a> will rapidly emerge in the next few years, particularly relative to automation and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

While the application of these technologies will be more pronounced in certain sectors, one thing is certain: No industry will be immune<\/a>. Technical fluency is now a baseline qualification, and those without it risk being left behind.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Instead of training its employees at universities, Amazon is creating its own programs.<\/span>
\nAP Photo\/Steven Senne<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The role of higher ed<\/h2>\n

Who should be responsible for ensuring the workforce is prepared for these challenges?<\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s answer, essentially, is \u201cwe\u2019ll take care of it.\u201d One of the more telling aspects of Amazon\u2019s announcement was that it plans to use its own programs to retrain employees, such as Amazon Technical Academy<\/a> and Machine Learning University.<\/p>\n

There was no mention of universities and colleges. Other companies, such as Google<\/a>, similarly say they are relying on partners outside of traditional academia to support their training needs.<\/p>\n

While corporate universities<\/a> are hardly a new development, I believe the coming labor market challenge requires higher education to get in the game.<\/p>\n

The problem is, at present, higher education is designed for the last industrial revolution, not the current one. Universities and colleges deliver degrees at a glacial pace. The average completion time for a bachelor degree is five years<\/a>. That\u2019s too slow.<\/p>\n

Imagine a young computer science major entering a college this fall and graduating in 2024 \u2013 at which point researchers expect<\/a> AI to be capable of coding in complex computer languages like Python<\/a>. By the time she graduates, not only will she be competing against humans for jobs, but she\u2019ll also be going up against a more efficient and cheaper AI bot.<\/p>\n

Higher education needs to become more adaptive and innovative. If it doesn\u2019t, industry will continue to take the lead on its own.<\/p>\n

Retraining the future<\/h2>\n

The question then becomes, do we want corporate training programs to be the basis of participation in the future of work and the only way for workers to get up to speed?<\/p>\n

With well-founded concerns that organizations like Amazon represent a growing monopolistic threat<\/a>, I don\u2019t think we want these organizations to dominate education as well. Or to focus retraining efforts in ways that are likely to only suit a company\u2019s short-term business needs.<\/p>\n

Industry should play a part, but higher education needs to be the foundation.<\/p>\n

[ You\u2019re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation\u2019s authors and editors.<\/em> You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter<\/a>. ]\"The<\/p>\n

Scott F. Latham<\/a>, Associate Professor of Strategic Management, University of Massachusetts Lowell<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott F. Latham, University of Massachusetts Lowell Amazon\u2019s announcement that it will invest US$700 million to retrain 100,000 employees \u2013 a third of its U.S. workforce \u2013 in new technologies is the latest reminder that the much-heralded future of work is well underway. Policymakers, analysts and scholars trying to discern the retailer\u2019s motives and objectives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":17253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[277],"tags":[650,832,172,1996,358,1838,1581,687,679,184,665,405,193,682,18,255,6456],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17258"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17261,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17258\/revisions\/17261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}