Industrial Revolution 4.0

GS 3 Science and Technology Developments and their applications and effects in everyday life. Awareness in the fields of IT, Computers, robotics, nano-technology.

Introduction 

          The Fourth Industrial Revolution/Industry 4.0 is the ongoing automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices, using modern smart technology.

RECENT TRENDS:

• Continued Presence of Informal Economy: Nearly 90% of India’s workforce belongs to the informal sector.
• Contractualization of employment: 
  • The share of contract workers in total employment in India increased from 15.5% in 2000-01 to 27.9% in 2015-16. 
  • The share of directly hired workers fell from 61.2% to 50.4% over the same period.
• Gig Economy: 
  • It is characterised by short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs.
  • It often involves connecting with customers through an online platform. 
  • In India, there are about 3 million gig workers 
  • Example: 
    • Delivery boys of app-based food
    • consultants
    • bloggers.
• Resource scarcity and climate change: According to the report Global Trends 2030
  • demand for energy and water is to increase by 50% and 40% by 2030. 
  • Jobs will be created in 
    • alternative energy
    • new engineering processes
    • product design
    • waste management
    • re-use

The Drivers of Change:

          Large-scale machine-to-machine communication (M2M) and the internet of things (IoT) are integrated for increased automation, improved communication and self-monitoring, and production of smart machines that can analyze and diagnose issues without the need for human intervention.

• Technological breakthroughs: New technological innovations bringing transformative impact on the nature work.such as 
  • Big Data
  • 3-D printing
  • artificial intelligence
  • robotics

• Demographic Changes: the world’s population is ageing, putting pressure on business, social institutions and economies. The shortage of a human workforce has necessitated automation.
• Rapid urbanisation: The UN projects that by 2050, the world’s urban population will increase by some 72%. 
  • Rapidly growing cities have become drivers of a new industrial revolution.
• Shifts in global economic power: Power shifting between developed and developing countries with a large working-age population will attract investments and become a driving force for the future of work.

Challenges:

• Low Job Creation: Job creation has not been sufficient to absorb the growth in the number of people seeking jobs.
  • As of 2016, 198 million jobless people globally who have been actively seeking employment
• Poor Quality Employment: 
  • nearly 43% of employed people were in own-account or contributing family work which is often characterized by low pay, informality and limited social security.
• Income inequality: ILO observes that although workers have become increasingly productive, the benefits of their work have increasingly accrued to capital income and to those at the top of the income distribution.
• Gender Pay gap: 
  • female labour force participation has increased
  • the gender pay gap remains a major concern, women being paid 20% less than men.
• Digital Divide: 
  • Only 53.6% of all households have internet access.
  • In emerging countries, the share is only 15%. 
  • Given the rapid technological advancements, digital divide remains a key challenge for skill development and employment opportunities.
• Impact of Technology on Employment: 
  • There are fears that technological development will lead to job destruction. 
  • Automation could be harmful for labour-intensive industries in India such as 
    • textiles
    • finance
    • construction
    • hospitality
    • travel
    • tourism
    • media
    • electronics
    • mining
    • agriculture
    • transportation
    • entertainment.
• The Indian ICT sector is susceptible to AI/robots replacing workers in its major IT export markets.
• The retail sector, the largest employer of lower skill youth, is job shedding as e-retail accelerates and human jobs in logistics, warehousing and delivery services are being robotised.

Way Forward 

• Universal Labour Guarantee: 
  • should pledge to provide a universal labour guarantee that protects 
    • fundamental workers’ rights
    • adequate living wage
    • limits on hours of work
    • safe and healthy workplaces
• Lifelong Learning: 
  • to provide a universal entitlement 
  • to lifelong learning that enables people 
  • to acquire skills 
  • to reskill and up skill.
• Investment to support Work Transition: Investments in the institutions, policies and strategies.
  • that will support people through future of work transitions.
• Agenda for Gender Equality: in order to achieve gender equality.
  • It is important to strengthen women’s voice and leadership.
  • eliminating violence and harassment at work.
  • implementing pay transparency policies.
• Social Protection: from birth to old age that supports people’s needs over the life cycle should be provided.
• Governance for Digital Platforms: An international governance system for digital labour platforms should be established to protect minimum rights of workers.
• Sustainable Work: Incentives are required to promote investments in key areas for decent and sustainable work- in areas of green, rural economy, small and medium enterprises
• Human centric business and economic Model: 
  • Distributional dimensions of growth
  • the value of unpaid work performed in the service of households and communities
  • the externalities of economic activity, 
    • should be taken into account 
• Roadmap for India: India should adopt Chard Dham Roadmap for steering technological change.
• Gyaan Dham: 
  • a national observatory for scoping the tech-to-work equation.
  • Databases on existing and future trends, sector by sector, needs to be created.
• Kaushalya Dham:
  • It means nurturing “human capabilities” for Tech-Economy 4.0 work.
  • To meet labour market needs, potential skill gaps must be closed through the NEP and comprehensive training infrastructure.
• Suniyojan Dham: It involves transformative investments in multi-stakeholder ecosystems to empower the youth and women through future-of-work transitions.
• Samajik Nyaya Dham:
  • means ensuring a just transition through a new social compact among all stakeholders and a universal social protection floor. 
  • human-centred and equity-based approach in future labour market policies and standards is needed.
• Upakram Dham: 
• It involves taking special initiatives enabling India to leverage the world’s third-largest ICT workforce to pole-vault into Tech4 excellence. 
• critical assets:
  • India’s diversity 
  • scale for neural net
  • data richness
  • huge base of engineers
  • mathematicians and coders of AI available or trainable at scale
  • decent ecosystems in ICT metros.

Conclusion 

       The fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0 has become quite a buzzword. Economies across the globe are all set to adopt it and India is also treading the path in its own way.