First, the main effect of technology is to transform jobs rather than create or destroy them. Go to any conference on technology and the future of jobs, and the most frequently asked question is: will technology create jobs or destroy jobs? The question misses the main point – which is that technology affects tasks within jobs rather than entire jobs. Many of the jobs we have been doing all these years have not disappeared, but the tasks we do within jobs have changed substantially because of technology. And these new tasks require new skills. And this is what the E&Y study also finds. Data analytics and automation will augment one out of two job roles in the financial sector. In other words, workers will be able to deliver over and beyond what would traditionally be expected. While some rules-based tasks will be automated, data analytics and automation will amplify the importance of tasks requiring human judgement. The study also finds that one out of three job roles will be heavily transformed. This means that a proportion of tasks within these jobs will be substituted using data analytics and automation, and the remaining tasks will converge into new job roles that require more judgement, customisation and creativity. In some other cases, most of the tasks could become automated and these job roles could be displaced. The key take-away from all this: focus on tasks that will be affected by data analytics and identify the skills necessary to perform these new tasks.
Traditionally – and this is true of the industry globally – financial institutions dealt with business transformation through a simple hire-and-fire strategy: hire from the market people with the skills to do the new emerging jobs and fire those in jobs that have become less relevant. This strategy will no longer work. The combination of deep domain skills, broad lateral skills, and the digital skills of the future does not often come in a package. The superior strategy is to continually train, upskill, and transform the existing workforce. This calls for a comprehensive workforce transformation strategy that is closely aligned to the business strategy. All the industry CEOs that I have spoken to understand this well. Together, let us build an agile and responsive training ecosystem that will transform the financial sector workforce. Let me now invite Mrs Josephine Teo, Minister for Manpower, to deliver her keynote address. 3/3  BIS central bankers' speeches