Lexpert magazine features articles and columns on developments in legal practice management, deals and lawsuits of interest in Canada, the law and business issues of interest to legal professionals and businesses that purchase legal services.
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84 LEXPERT MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 TECHNOLOGY | COLUMNS | George Takach is a senior partner at McCarthy Tétrault LLP and the author of Computer Law. positions in the workforce as a result of the new technologies. e range of job loss projections vary widely, from 9% to 75%. Well, that is quite a spread, illustrating to me the confusion between possibility and probability in this area of social science and predictive analysis. If you want to read only one good study in this important area, I can recommend Policy Brief on the Future of Work — Put- ting Faces to the Jobs at Risk of Automation, published by the OECD in March 2018. In short, it predicts that 14% of jobs will be wiped out by new technology; and, that that another 32% of jobs will be materially affected by technology. But this will actual- ly be a good thing, with one very important proviso, namely that workers in this last category who want to stay in their jobs will have to develop new skills and attributes if they want to stay employed in them. Consider bank tellers, for example. When the ATM came into widespread use in the 1980s, many predicted the demise of the human teller; why would customers wait in line in a bank branch on a Friday to withdraw some of their money for the weekend, when they could just visit an ATM. Soon aer, when e-banking took off and customers could do their banking transactions over the Internet, it was pre- dicted that that was another nail in the bank-teller job description. Interestingly, that has not happened. In- deed, the number of bank tellers in North America has increased, from 500,000 to 600,000; but the job of bank tellers has also changed. ey perform far fewer cash withdrawal transactions, as customers do indeed use the ATM for that. And they don't balance chequebooks much anymore (e-banking takes care of that for most peo- ple). But what they do engage in more is the provision of higher value services, such as advising clients on investment products, or assisting small businesses with their many banking challenges. In short, technology evolution has resulted in the upskilling of the bank teller job. If you want to be a bank teller today, you better have good social skills (in addition to the previously impor- tant math competencies). DIFFERENT JOBS RATHER THAN FEWER e bank teller example will play out in thousands of other vertical sub-businesses. For example, Canada Post is delivering many fewer letters today due to email and other electronic forms of delivery. But Canada Post is delivering many millions more parcels than previously, as e-com- merce starts to really take off in Canada. e workflow of delivering parcels is quite different, and so the job requirements of most Canada Post staff will change as well. Another occupation that will change is trucking. It appears that a very high per- centage of truck drivers retiring over the next 10 years will be hard to replace be- cause young people today will not put up with the long hours away from home and other hardships of driving a long-distance truck. erefore, in a few years, the inter- city leg of the truck delivery trip will be outsourced to autonomous vehicles; but there will still be a requirement for an ex- perienced trucker to effect the last leg of the journey between the truck depot at the edge of town (where the self-driving truck will drop its trailer) and the loading dock of the ultimate customer. In short, we'll still have truck drivers, but their jobs will be different (i.e., they will interact more with customers; they will need to understand optimized route scheduling systems; they may well take on certain "sales" functions as they begin to interface more with clients and prospects, etc.). MORE TECH JOBS, LIFELONG LEARNING It perhaps goes without saying, but of course in addition to most jobs undergoing technology driven transformation over the next number of years, there will also be cre- ated hundreds of thousands of new tech- oriented jobs in this country. So, if your niece is asking you about the future job market four years hence (she is just starting university), you would do well to chat up the tech sector, both in terms of traditional tech companies (but also early-stage tech companies that are all trying to disrupt the traditional companies — point her to the first few screens of her mobile phone that contain the icons for all her apps, and re- mind her that each tile represents a tradi- tional offline business that has since been disrupted and, usually, replaced). Tech jobs are also paying relatively well nowadays. A recent comprehensive survey has found that technical architect engi- neers, soware engineers, and persons in related positions have starting salaries in the $75,000 range, and in a few years, the more successful ones are earning twice that, particularly if they take on manage- ment or similar leadership roles. As for your nephew starting in his non-tech job, your advice to him should be "lifelong learning." Whatever his last stage of formal education, let him know it should just be one of several phases of education and training; that if he wants to remain meaningfully employed aer the transformations inevitably coming to his business, his best bet is to keep honing and fine-tuning his skills so he stays indispens- able to his employer. It's the best strategy for staying in the perpetual change 35% of the workforce, and avoiding becoming one of the displaced 15% . CONSIDER bank tellers, for example. When the ATM came into widespread use, many predicted the demise of the human teller ... Interestingly, the number of bank tellers in North America has increased, from 500,000 to 600,000; but the job of bank tellers has also changed.