Women first to be affected by technological disruption, expert says

Thursday, 24 May 2018

AUT lecturer Mahsa✓ Mohaghegh said along with taking away jobs, digital disruption would create new ones.

Job automation will affect women first as technological disruption continues to transform the way we work, an innovation expert says.

A staggering 85 per cent of jobs that will exist in 2030 have not been invented yet, according to a report by software giant Dell.

University of Auckland associate professor Nicola Gaston.says some female-dominated industries will require massive upskilling.

University of Auckland's senior innovation and entrepreneurship lecturer Janine Swail said automation was expected to disrupt the workforce in three stages, algorithm (computational tasks), augmentation (automation of repeatable tasks) and autonomy (situational problem solving).

She said because of the gendered nature of industries, each of those stages posed a risk to different sectors and female-dominated roles were most in impending risk of being automated.

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'We're currently in the stage of algorithm automation, which is simple automation of computational jobs and this hasn't had much impact on men or women's jobs,' Swail said.

'But industries with more women are likely to be at risk in the next stage of augmented automation.'

In the UK a report by The Institute for Public Policy Research showed automation risked increasing gender inequality, as a greater proportion of jobs held by women were likely to be automatable.

According to Statistics NZ women only make up only 23 per cent of the IT workforce and they are mostly occupy clerical and administrative, or community and customer service roles.

University of Auckland's physics professor Nicola Gaston said the immediate effect technological disruption would have on women's jobs was concerning.

'There's a real concern that as technological disruption in employment increases, upskilling, professional development and training will be necessary for everyone.and that's a big problem,' Gaston said.

She said the gendered nature of industries was based on historical biases around the types of jobs men were expected to do and a lack of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) industries.

MYOB's Women in Tech report found only 3 per cent of 15-year-old Kiwi girls wanted to pursue a career in ICT (information and communication technology).

But women weren't the only ones going to be affected by technological disruption.

Swail said the third wave of automation would affect male-dominated industries like construction, manufacturing and transport more.

'We won't see those jobs being at risk by automation till we get to the 2030s, but because there aren't many women in those industries, men are inevitably more at risk.'

Auckland University of Technology lecturer Mahsa Mohaghegh said along with taking away jobs, digital disruption would also create new ones.

'In the digital disruption, upskilling, professional development and training will be necessary for everyone.

'If anything, the disruption will even the playing field because everyone will be in the same situation and will need to learn a lot of new things,' Mohaghegh said.

'Upskilling, professional development and just being hungry to learn everyday is really necessary now, because we have to prepare for those jobs that don't exist yet.'

She said in preparing for the future of work, it was still important for STEM subjects to target young women.

'The wording and messaging in the tech sector needs to change. Even at universities, courses are not targeted to women.

'Women tend to want to use technology to change other people's lives, they're not about making something cool. We need to change our approach, our communication and normalise women in technology.'