The End Of The Line
Quite comical if it was not so sad to see those losing their jobs.
One month ago the Department of Trade and Industry in South Africa published an article stating that the automotive sector was investing billions of dollars into this sector. The master plan to double the work force in this so called booming sector which is quite the opposite being told 1 month later as this could not be further from the truth. The investment was automation and was more about getting rid of the jobs and this is the start as most jobs being replaced currently are those of the unskilled.
Yesterday Ford South Africa announced that they were going to retrench 474 employees from their two manufacturing plants. One group from the engine building facility and another from their assembly line. This is what bigger corporations like Ford call “preemptive and calculated strategic realignment” which is another way of staying ahead of the trouble that is heading your way.
When your production numbers drop, steel prices are rising, energy costs rising there is only one solution and that is to decrease the work force by introducing automated systems like robots. Ford has spent billions of dollars globally on automating their plants so this is the first phase of job cuts and this will continue until they reach a point that only the key personnel are left which will look like a skeleton staff.
The funny thing about this is normally the trade unions would be complaining and making a noise but they know strike action would only speed up the process. Jobs that have been generational with sons following their fathers and grandfathers doing a similar job is coming to an end. This is the end of the line and will eventually see over 115 000 direct jobs lost and between 500 000 and 1.5 million jobs indirectly disappear. This as a representation of the workforce would be the equivalent of around 15% which is a huge chunk of jobs and a massive hit to the unemployment number.
The government not protecting the auto manufacturers through allowing cheap Chinese imports flood the market has only sped up this process and would have happened within the next 5 years. Ford will indirectly point a finger and lay the blame at the governments feet because they are partially responsible.
The auto manufacturing sector is only one sector and the next sector that is going to be hit will be mining with roughly a similar size workforce so in theory SA could see 30% of the jobs disappear within the next 5 years. The government manipulated unemployment statistics say that the country is at around 34% unemployment and 62% youth unemployment (16-34 years) so one could be looking at over 60% unemployment seeing the numbers double.
If we look at the trucking industry and warehousing that would account for another 30% of the total job market and that sector is already slowly being replaced. Just these 3 sectors account for 60% of the jobs in South Africa and all of these besides a very small percentage would be under serious threat and replaced within the next 10 years.
Once automated work forces go into operation this is only a matter of time before we see this as a standard work practice everywhere and why working for yourself is going to be so important in the future. Come 2035 there will be no jobs besides the specialist sectors that require human input and anything unskilled will be taken by automation or robots. When you have an uneducated , unskilled work force there are consequences and those consequences are unemployment as you add no value.
Posted Using INLEO