Canadian Press reports that newly released documents show that federal officials found the likelihood of a “doomsday” scenario where automation eliminates half of Canadian jobs to be “overstated.”
The documents, obtained by CP through the Access to Information Act, contrasts with some studies that find artificial intelligence and robots will displace large segments of the Canadian work force in the not-to-distant future.
A 2016 study by the Brookfield Institute, for instance, found that up to 42 per cent of the Canadian labour force was at high risk of being affected by automation over the coming 20 years.
Other more recent studies appear to confirm fears that computers are coming for a lot of peoples’ jobs.
A robot called Pepper is positioned near an entrance to a Microsoft Store location in Boston last March. (The Associated Press)
CP says the federal documents were prepared as the foundation for advice for the winner of last fall’s federal election.
They were part of a series of exercises that officials ran to see how well federal “social safety net” programs responded to the most dire of predictions about changes coming to to the workforce.
It is unclear how the federal programs fared because, CP says, they were considered advice for government and were blacked out.
CP says the documents are unclear about who exactly will feel the effects and how fast changes are coming.
Last March, federal officials forecast that rural towns who depend on manufacturing would likely feel the impact of automation the most.
The most recent documents say there are early indications of challenges in parts of the economy that the government should act on–such as the way online streaming services are reshaping music, television and movie production.
Nao is a robot developed by French company Aldebaran Robotics and Belgian company Zora Robotics. The machine is programmed to interact with and entertain elderly people, but some experts say a future robot could one day provide more advanced care. (Stephane De SakutinAFP/Getty Images)
CP reports that the federal documents also say some tasks, such as copy editing and data entry, could be outsourced to low-cost overseas workers through online platforms while others, such as three-dimensional printing, might bring back manufacturing jobs.
Officials advising Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough say many Canadians lack “soft skills and basic digital skills” needed to obtain future work, according to CP.
That assessment was supported by a recent Brookfield Institute report that advised governments to create “a wide variety of accessible programming designed to teach Canadians general workforce digital skills…along with general soft skills.”
A federal policy that came into effect on Jan. 1, includes a $250-a-year benefit for workers to be used for training and a matching leave underwritten by Employment Insurance.
With files from CP (Jordan Press)
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