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The Queen’s International Institute on Social Policy (QIISP) took on an ambitious topic for its 23rd conference: Are Canadians ready for the work of the future?

“The QIISP brings researchers and academics together with policy makers and people in the community so that it’s not another academic-only conference,” says Margaret Biggs, Matthews Fellow in Global Public Policy and event co-organizer. “The Conference tries to get a different mix and conversation. It’s hard to do, but it’s something that Queen’s has excelled at for the past 23 years.”

Three days of back-to-back programming included panels and presentations by speakers from across Canada and internationally on the many challenges and opportunities of emerging technology in the labour force.

“How do we anticipate what is coming? How do we think about automation, which is one of the most worrisome areas that our governments and people related to these policies want to tackle?” says Gabriela Ramos, Chief of Staff and G20 Sherpa of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), during her opening keynote. “How do we prepare the kids of the future for jobs when we don’t know what kind of jobs there will be, and how many jobs will be transformed?”

Ms. Ramos outlined the analysis that the OECD has done to understand which kinds of jobs might be most effective by the rise of automation. They concluded that 13 per cent of the jobs as we know them today will disappear, and an additional 35 per cent will be transformed completely.

“Mid-level skills, which are routine, are the ones being threatened. Those that belong to people who have not had the highest level of education,” she says. ”Workers with lower secondary degrees face the possibility of having their jobs disappear via automation by up to 40 per cent, compared to only five per cent of workers with tertiary degrees.”

Other topics explored throughout the conference included international trends in work around the world, changes in the future of learning, social protection and cohesion, and practical discussions on who is responsible for preparing Canadians for the future of work.

“The purpose of the QIISP has always been to bring together senior researches and senior public policy officials to discuss contemporary issues, to examine the research and what it says about these issues, and to have an informed debate,” says Keith Banting, Stauffer-Dunning Fellow with the School of Policy Studies, Professor Emeritus in the School of Policy Studies and Department of Political Studies, and co-organizer of the event.

Darrell West, Vice President and Director of Governance Studies in the Centre for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institute, presented the second keynote on the impact of robots, AI, and automation on the next generation in the workplace during the conference’s banquet.

“The policy piece will be crucial as we make the transition to a digital economy. Students and young people are going to need new skills,” say Mr. West. “There’s going to be more change, more surprises, economic disruptions, new technologies, new jobs – they’re going to have to have the agility to pivot quickly. When we think about the education process, we often think about particular skills and competencies that they need. That’s important, but we also need to teach the life skill of agility to deal with a world that is becoming far less predictable.”

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