Business
250 million people to lose jobs this year – Microsoft President
Brad Smith, President of Microsoft has said a quarter of a billion people could lose jobs this year as the world faces staggering jobs challenge not helped by the outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic.
Smith said millions will need to learn new skills to get jobs, or even to hang on to their old one, as the digitisation of economies races ahead.
Microsoft recently announced massive plan to deliver skills and training to 25 million people globally this year, offering training, skills, certifications and help finding jobs with the help of Microsoft-owned LinkedIn.
Smith, however, conceded that many jobs in many countries would be beyond the reach of digital retraining.
“It’s true that the nature of work varies widely around the world. Not all jobs can be digitised, particularly in the developing world.
“We live in a world of internet inequality – if we don’t do something about it we are going to exacerbate all the other inequalities that we all worry about. This is a task beyond any one company or any one government but if we can reach 25 million people we will feel like we are doing our part.”
Microsoft will spend $20m on this programme, which will strike many as fairly small given this is a company whose value has increased by $500bn in the past year.
If big US tech looked powerful before Covid-19, it looks imperious now. Just five companies make up 20% of the value of the S&P 500 index. Does he understand why many feel big tech is too powerful and needs reining in?
“Tech is a powerful tool but it can also be a formidable weapon in the wrong hands,” he says. “So this is a critical time for technology, it has more responsibility than ever.”
“I think people have more questions than ever and that’s not a bad thing. To ensure that technology is a force for good, governments need to move more quickly to develop technology-focused laws. While tech companies need to exert some self-restraint.”
Getting global agreement on how to regulate and tax technology has proved notoriously difficult and many countries are nervous as the increasing digitisation of their economies makes it harder to generate the tax revenue they will need to pay for the trillions of dollars of damage Covid-19 has done.
Advances in technology will also lead to an increase in automation and AI which may only hasten mass unemployment. What responsibility does Mr Smith feel that tech companies have to pay for the changes to employment that they are ushering in?
“I think the good news is that governments have all the tools they need to make sure that tech companies remain responsive and responsible under the rule of law,” he says.
“Fundamentally the responsibility of companies and countries is to make sure that people have the skills to ensure they reap the benefits rather than suffer from the consequences of the changes unleashed.
“I think we all need to recognise that tech cannot solve everything, but nothing can be solved without us.”
