BY: THE MARKET WATCH
Jack (not his real name) is 61 years old and was laid off by his employer. He was working as a Quality Control Inspector in an electronics firm in Penang. He decided to seek a job and got an interview in a semiconductor factory in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan.
Jack was brimming with confidence when he went for the interview, as he had many years of experience in these industries and considered himself one of the pioneers in Penang’s booming electronics and semiconductor businesses.
When he was called to the interview room his confidence grew even stronger as the interviewer was someone much younger than him and he proceeded to answer all the questions posed to him and concluded by stating his salary expectations.
He had a rude shock when he heard the interviewer’s response to his salary expectations. The interviewer told him, “Mr Jack your salary expectation is way beyond our budget and for half your salary demand a candidate half your age can be hired by us.”
It’s now wholly an employers market
In the economic booms beginning in the 1980s in Malaysia up to the year 2010 it was an employees market and they called the shots while employers were under pressure to cave-in to their demands or their businesses would suffer.
But since the year 2010 the situation has changed markedly as employers began to dictate terms and conditions and adopted a take it or leave it option to those they hired as they had many candidates for a job on the waiting list.
The job market began to shrink terribly as Artificial Intelligence, automation, technology, robotics and other hi-tech mechanisation began to displace the need for professionals and workers at the marketplace and the workplace.
Jack as a mature age worker was the victim of his own doing as his vast knowledge and experience worked against him and it now looks as if he has to abandon his plans to continue working and opt for retirement.
The technology giants are changing the working environment
Worldwide there is a growing phenomenon in which technology giants are guilty of eliminating the need for human capital by pushing their technological products to replace the need for hiring workers thus causing a shortage of jobs.
The owners and operators of these tech giants are multi-billionaires who are not content but wanting to become even richer thus killing off the opportunities for work and meaningful jobs causing many people all over the world to be unemployed.
This growing phenomenon has not only resulted in the job market shrinking but it has created such wealthy tech billionaires that there is now a growing schism or yawning gap caused by the digital divide between the elite and the poor in the world.
The wealth of the world is now terribly unbalanced with think tank Oxfam stating that only 10 individuals own nearly half the wealth of the world while the remaining 8 billion people own the other half of the wealth.
The end result of the push to go hi-tech
Countries are now in a frenzied push to go hi-tech as they see it as the way forward and the tech billionaires are not thinking of the loss of jobs but how to go even further leaving humans with absolutely no jobs.
This is a frightening specter to contemplate and governments are readying cash bailouts for those who are joining the ranks of the unemployed and providing households with financial aid and assistance.
As a result there is the emergence of welfare states as meaningful jobs get depleted and the future becomes a major challenge to job seekers as they venture into the gig economy by being e-hailing drivers, delivery riders and home tutors.
But the gig economy is in its infancy and is not regulated and monitored and this has created a free-for-all situation as many Malaysians switch to doing gig roles in order to earn a decent income to support themselves and their families.
Time to halt the ambitions of the tech billionaires
The employees market of the world must wake up to stem the tide, to halt the tech billionaires from robbing them of meaningful jobs and their livelihoods by slowing down the rate of using hi-tech to replace them at the workplace.
There must and there is a dire need for more meaningful jobs to be created and employees and governments must fight the unbridled greed of tech billionaires grabbing everything in their sight leaving the employee market with crumbs only.
When tech billionaires possess so much wealth it also translates into possessing power to control and manipulate people and stamping their will and wishes and authority on humankind which is a dangerous scenario evolving.
This kind of situation can cause tech billionaires to become demi-gods and it bodes ill for everyone on this earth which is why it is now important for workers and governments to act as a check and balance on these greedy manipulators of wealth.
**The Market Watch suggests everyone wake up to these changing trends and redress the situation to create a healthier and just future for workers all over the world
-THE MALAYSIA VOICE
(The views expressed on this opinion is of the writer and not the publisher)
