Job switches and structural change are accelerating

The digital transformation of the world of work is accelerating job switches and structural change in Germany. The first main interim results to emerge from the research project “Polarisation of activities in Economy 4.0 – skilled worker qualifications and skilled worker requirements in the digitalised work of tomorrow”, which is being conducted by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), have shown that the number of persons with academic qualifications is on the increase whilst the numbers of those with vocational qualifications and of the low skilled are falling. Complexity of tasks to be performed is rising, and the significance of education and continuing training is growing.

“Two developments can already be identified,” stressed BIBB President Friedrich Hubert Esser. “Changes in jobs and activity caused by the spread of digital technology will accelerate, and the sectoral switch towards more technology-aided services will continue to gather momentum. However, another thing which is clear is that there is no alternative to these developments. Any delay or even a protracted implementation of digital technology will exert a negative effect on Germany as an economic location because Germany would then export less and would need to source more new goods abroad.” Professor Esser went on to say that it was also possible to identify a clear asymmetry in the level of digital transformation within the various sectors of German trade and industry.

New skills requirements were arising for employees at their workplace in the wake of sectoral and occupationally specific structural change. “A foreseeable consequence of the digital revolution is that there will be fewer tasks at skilled worker level in future but greater demand for highly complex tasks,” continued Professor Esser. “For example, the proportion of tasks related to IT or to the management and control of processes will rise. We should, however, view this development very much as an opportunity rather than as a risk.” He pointed out that more than 35 percent of all highly complex tasks were today already carried out by persons without academic training. Despite the fact that the proportion of persons with academic qualifications was continuing to rise, there would also in the long term be skilled workers increasingly performing highly complex tasks. “The prerequisite for this is that skilled workers develop their competences further on the basis of current initial and advanced training occupations and in a permeable educational system.”

A second interim result from the project emphasises that the loss of jobs does not solely depend on the proportion of routine tasks which can possibly be performed by machines instead. The mix of tasks at the workplace is much more of a factor. In specific terms, this means that if there is a rise in “machine relevance”, i.e. the scope of tasks that can be carried out on or via machines, and an attendant increase in cognitive demands in the workplace, then labour market opportunities will be enhanced. Such employees are the “winners” in the process of digital transformation. If “machine relevance” increases but the cognitive requirements in the workplace fall, then labour market chances will also decline. The consequence then is “digital losers”.

For this reason, one of the impacts of increased cognitive requirements at the workplace will be a further rise in the significance of education and continuing training. If workplace requirements change and rise, a key role is accorded to continuing vocational training in particular in order to develop competences further on an ongoing basis and meet the requirements of a digitalised world of work.

Further information (in German language) is available on the BIBB website via an article entitled “Digital transformation of working landscapes – no polarisation of the world of work but accelerated structural change and job switching” at www.bibb.de/veroeffentlichungen/de/publication/show/id/8169.

Specimen copy requested if printed.