HP Innovation Journal Issue 12: Summer 2019 | Page 68

BRIDGING THE
LABOR GAP
JONATHAN BRILL
Global Futurist, HP
MAGGIE ANCONA
Head of Enterprise Digital Strategy
& Transformation, HP
As we accelerate into the future, the next wave of
automation will look different from today’s version.
Instead of solely focusing on cost reduction, the
goal will be to improve speed and agility.
This next wave comes at a time when companies are
needing to radically increase the performance of their
most expensive workers.
By 2030, there will be a 16% global shortage of workers
with four-year degrees. This shortage will drive up the
cost of labor around the world. In Singapore, this is
projected to increase average wages from $44,000 to over
$70,000 USD per head. Meanwhile, the U.S. is projected
to see $8,300 of wage inflation for skilled workers. 1
India is the only major economy with an excess capacity
of high-skill labor. Its 1.1 million excess workers will
have an insignificant impact on this crisis. 2 They will
have just enough to backfill the high-skill labor shortage
in California.³
The economic impacts of labor shortages are being com-
pounded by accelerating innovation. To give a sense of
scale, 30% of IT sector employees will require more than
three months of retraining between 2018 and 2022, accord-
ing to a recent study by the World Economic Forum.⁴
Companies will have to think very differently about labor
and automation than they did when skilled labor was
growing and skills lasted longer. Wage inflation will crush
the margins of those who don’t.
There are three approaches to driving
productivity:
F MORE PEOPLE
F FASTER TOOLS
F BETTER PROCESSES
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HP Innovation Journal Issue 12