The emergence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) threatens to reduce human activity and its relevance in the workplace through automation and digitisation of jobs.

A study conducted by a WSU researcher from the Department of Economic and Business Sciences, Baseza Totobayo finds that it is cheaper to reskill the current workforce to keep up with evolving business trends.

This is an explanatory study that collected quantitative data from fifty-six (56) managers of small businesses in Mthatha.

 It recommends that small businesses should invest in reskilling their workers and found that the benefits of reskilling current employees of the business outweighs the costs involved in the process,” he said.

He said, “South Africa is faced with a high rate of unemployment and a growing mismatch of skills needed in the employment sector with the skills that job seekers have. Employees  in these lower-skilled positions include (but are not limited to) office and administrative assistants, production, and manufacturing positions.”

In his problem statement, Totobayo noted that though the cost of reskilling employees is heavy on small businesses, the automation of jobs in the 4IR which seeks to reduce human input in the workplace with machines and robotics calls for acceleration of endeavours to retain jobs which may be redundant through reskilling the current workforce.

The study depicts that 88% of managers indicated that reskilling employees has improved profit margins, while 77% indicated that reskilling outways the cost of sourcing new talent.

Furthermore, a whopping 91% of managers agree on the improvement of productivity, 84% saw it more beneficial than hiring new employees and 80% said that reskilling improves employee loyalty towards the business.

He added thatthe gap between employment and efforts to reduce unemployment keeps widening, with much visible consequences in rural areas such as Mthatha where crime and birth rates escalate. Most households are living below the poverty line and the economy is in a dire state, owing to high rate of unemployment.

By Ongezwa Sigodi