Experts agree the digital revolution will destroy and create an enormous amount of jobs. The important question is where they will be gained, and where they will be lost.
Lim: Local talent can do a lot for 4.0 plan
In Thailand, 44% of jobs are at high risk of automation, including close to 70% of retail workers, as well as 55% of those working in hotels, 45% of those in banking and 54% of those in manufacturing, said the International Labor Organisation (ILO).
Workers in automotive manufacturing face great risk of replacement (close to 92%), given the high level of technological penetration in that industry, said the ILO.
By contrast, only 15% of Thai jobs are classified as having a low risk of replacement, including lawyers, managers, doctors and teachers. But these statistics may provide an overly simplistic picture, said Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
BCG has conducted studies on job replacement in Singapore and Germany, and in both cases found that the number of jobs eliminated was about equal to the number of jobs created, a good proportion of which were "more cognitive jobs" like data scientists, software developers and managers.
The jobs created paid, on average, 50% more than those eliminated, according to the global consultancy.
But the displaced person, usually a blue-collar worker, is unlikely to get the new job, said Yew Heng Lim, managing director at BCG's Singapore office.
But the outcome may be markedly different in developing economies like Thailand, which still suffer from large skills gaps.
Isada: There is value in co-location
Attracting Thai nationals educated abroad to work in the sector may prove challenging, and new types of jobs can easily be outsourced to developed countries.
The type of jobs created also open up the possibility of remote work, which may not benefit developing countries like Thailand.
Unlike legacy occupations, digital workers do not need to be near the factory, said Mr Lim. Companies faced with skilled labour shortages may choose to outsource their tech functions to workers in advanced economies, who can work remotely without efficiency loss.
"The data scientist [position] is still in its early stages of evolution, being relatively rare and only attracted certain kinds of habitats," he said.
Tech workers also tend to cluster together, said Isada Hiranwiwatkul, managing director and head of BCG's Bangkok office.
"There is value in co-locating the same kind of people, which is why Silicon Valley is still Silicon Valley," he said.
Moreover, developing a data scientist may take anywhere from 8-10 years, said Mr Isada, which makes the prospects for a native trained digital workforce a far-off prospect.
While Thai firms may find it hard to attract world-class talent from tech hubs in Singapore, California and Australia, not all companies may need expert data scientists to be competitive in the digital age
"You don't need to have Silicon Valley types everywhere to implement industry 4.0," said Mr Lim. "There are people that need to design, but there are others that only need manage or maintain these big data systems. There is still quite a bit that local talent can do."
While old companies may not replace a substantial proportion of their workers right away, they will face challenges from new entrants who make full use of automation to capture market share.
"These new firms are not disrupting their own employees, but other people's employees," said Mr Isada.
