Colombia. The Ministry of Labor of Colombia presented the results of its most recent study on labor gaps, this time focused on the technology sector and the fourth industrial revolution.
"Forecast study of the impact of automation and technologies of the fourth industrial revolution (4RI) on the Colombian labor market", seeks to recognize the human capital gaps for an era of digital transformation and automation, which has led to a change in labor dynamics. Those who make public policy face the important challenge of promoting technological change, but at the same time protecting working conditions and workers' rights and seeking adequate preparation and training of the skills required by the jobs of the future.
"The study shows us a prospective of the talents we need for the fourth industrial revolution, I think it is a very positive input because it allows us to prepare people of all ages to train in the skills that will be relevant in the field of technology," said the Deputy Minister of Employment and Pensions, Andrés Felipe Uribe Medina.
"The study is very positive, because the findings allow us to enhance the training and skills of the people we are educating today to be more productive in the technological fields that will mark the development of the country in the future. These fields will point many paths both in productivity and in the well-being of people and it is an opportunity that we cannot miss," said the official.
"To face the challenges of industry 4.0 there must be changes in the methodology used by higher education and training institutions for work, teaching must be more focused on transversal and interdisciplinary knowledge related to new technologies and this study reveals those needs," said Kira Gidrón, Marketplace coordinator of the 4IR and collaborator in the development of the study.
As a result of the lack of prepared human capital, some of the companies have taken different shock measures. The largest companies with highly specialized needs have resorted to hiring staff outside the country, likewise, they have chosen to hire young people with some type of technical and bilingual bases to whom they train according to the needs and allow them to make a career within the companies.
The exhibition revealed a disconnect between the academic life of the student and the reality of the industry, where more work is required by the hand of the productive sector to connect the student with the business reality of the country, where students find applicability to the knowledge acquired.
Some of the technical competencies in which shortcomings have been observed are: skills related to Machine Learning and Big Data infrastructure, logical construction of codes in specialized languages, turning Artificial Intelligence AI into a product that generates added value to companies, identification of problems to be solved within companies, training of Artificial Intelligence AI models, likewise, it has been identified that there are few people with the knowledge in training AI Artificial Intelligence models.
