India One of the Least Prepared Countries for Automation
India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are most at risk and least prepared for the coming wave of automation, while Japan, Singapore and Australia are the most prepared within the Asia Pacific region, according to a latest report by Deloitte and Autodesk Foundation. Close to half of all businesses intend to increase their adoption of robotic process automation over the next year, with Covid-19 greatly accelerating the process across the world, according to the report. In particular, India ranks fifth highest in terms of the impact from automation and ninth in terms of their level preparedness for this impact. The construction industry is the most likely to be one of the hardest hit by automation across all Asia Pacific countries due to a high proportion of routine and manual tasks and low year-on-year global productivity growth (1% over the past 20 years to 2017). In India, the construction sector is the most likely to be automated, but it is the fifth most vulnerable, ahead of Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Myanmar and the Philippines. The report noted that digital change and automation are driving enormous productivity gains in the world of work which are helping improve standards of living across the globe. But there can also be significant adjustment costs associated with automation, and often those costs are felt by workers who are least able to successfully transition to new roles. The report also highlighted a series of proactive steps that should be taken to harness the benefits and address the risks, including increasing awareness of the need to adapt, funding industry-specific programmes for digital transformation and investing in learning programmes. This includes new credentialing and certification programs to give workers the skills they need to succeed, partnerships across the public and private sector to make workforce development a priority, and much more, Mittal added. The study by Autodesk, the Nasdaq-listed multinational software maker, analysed 12 APAC countries including Australia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.