Automation of port machinery will not lead to job cuts but rather requires reskilling that will strengthen productivity and economic growth, as illustrated by ports globally that switched to digital decades ago.
Edwin Briggeman, founder of Briggeman International, told delegates at Intermodal Africa 2023 that studies had shown that the workforce of the future would need to be retrained to meet the demand for digital skills, and a failure to do so in South Africa would lead to worse unemployment.
Briggeman said there was a misconception about automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and job shedding.
“The underlying understanding is that automation will take away jobs but there are also quite a lot of educated people – skilled people who have learned to work with AI and automation – so what about those people if we don’t automate?”
According to a 2020 World Economic Forum, 50% of all employees globally will need to be reskilled by 2025 because of digitisation.
“Fifty percent is a terribly high number and there is so much technology available we still don’t use all of it. It is time for Southern Africa to start embracing technology because, if we don’t, we will be left behind and that will have an even worse impact on people. There will be even more unemployment and people will be unable to participate,” Briggeman said.
He said Rotterdam port was digitised almost 25 years ago and the country had not experienced any adverse economic impact, rather the contrary. The port began implementing automated operations in the 1990s.
“Did the economy go down? No, it improved. Did unemployment rates go up after this? No, they didn’t and, thirdly, what happened to the Dutch logistics sector? It is a world-class logistics service provider, so automation was the stepping-stone to success and not the other way round.
“We don’t have to get people into jobs first; automation will create jobs. Studies have shown that there is no such thing as people being unemployed by automation. They merely must do a shift in skills,” he added.
Briggeman said jobs in programming and new ways of doing maintenance were examples of the skills shift required.
US-based Avlino president and chief executive officer, Ramana Jampala, said AI was highly useful to improve port productivity.
“AI does not replace people. AI simply replaces the inefficiencies that are there at a systemic level – reducing the movements of containers to truck by 40% to 50% will improve productivity and profitability. AI will improve job creation by eliminating inefficiencies,” he said.
