Firms Deploy Automation Tools as the Virus Keeps Workers Home

Firms across the globe are speeding up their automation plans focusing on automating their processes, as workers can’t make it to offices or factories

It’s official. Ernst & Young has confirmed that livelihoods are at risk as globally, 41% of employers are skeptical about how to handle the situation, worrying about the post-virus condition. Over 50% of the company owners across 45 countries are speeding up automation plans as workers are forced to stay at home during the COVID-19 outbreak.

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Some 41% of confirmed that they have accelerated their automation investments as the businesses are preparing for a post-crisis world. The news came up in the US, showing that about 3.3 million people have filed for unemployment. This is by far the highest number that has been ever recorded, and a jump from 300,000 or lesser in the week before. In the UK, about 477,000 people applied for universal credit in a time of just nine days.

The most tragic aspect of this crisis is the associated human cost, not only in terms of the lives lost but also the number of livelihoods at risk. Business owners have responded to this crisis with the urgency to focus on workforce welfare and job preservation.

The UK government guaranteed to pay 80% of the salaries to employees who are unable to work because of the outbreak. Most American adults are expected to get paid up to $1,200 after politicians approved an approximately $2tn stimulus package to be pushed into the economy. After the coronavirus situation stabilizes, executives need to make faster and more prompt moves to reshape, reimagine, and reinvent their business goals to create long-term value.

Of the 2,900 executives surveyed by EY, about 43% said they expected normalcy to return only by the third quarter of this year. But by then, 73% confirmed that the pandemic would have had a severe long-term impact on the global economy. Firms were already planning major digital transformation before the pandemic hit. The survey also found that once normalcy returns, businesses would focus on new investments in technology and digitization.

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According to the estimations by the Britain government, about 1.5 million workers are at high risk of losing their jobs to automation. Supermarket checkout assistants have already witnessed such a transformation due to the pandemic. Automation will take a toll on other jobs as well, mostly for the factory workers in the manufacturing sector. Also, the study concluded that women are most likely to lose their jobs, as a higher proportion of roles currently filled by women are at risk of automation. So, with the pandemic shaking up the global economy, automation adoption across industries has been faster than ever expected. Employees are facing fear and job loss anxiety in this crisis situation due to automation. Business owners need to step in this situation, to stand by the employees and make them feel secure enough to fight the pandemic strongly.