Future of Work in IT jobs and other jobs with IT skills in the United Arab Emirates
Posted: August 26th, 2021
Future of Work in IT jobs and other jobs with IT skills in the United Arab Emirates
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Abstract
The objective of the paper was to assess the future of work in IT jobs and related skills focussing on United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The study takes a wide perspective to establish the skill factors that will influence the future of IT jobs to ascertain how advances in technology will affect the IT job market in the region. The research relied on open source data collected from public sources. The data was analysed to help respond to the objectives of the study. The findings of the study revealed that the advances in technology presents unique transformation in the IT jobs and related skills. First, it is noted that the increasing adoption of automotive technologies will not take away jobs across industries but serves to redefine the job market. Further, the technological adoption would demand high skills to in major IT works. As a result, the transformations imply that most job categories would be profoundly redefined to suit the dynamic transformation in technologies. Some of the extensively noted skills that the UAE and GCC countries would demand include management of human resources and other job categories that require cognitive skills such as judgment, monitoring, and coordination, among others.
Table of Contents
2. Background and Literature Review.. 6
2.1. Literature Search Strategy. 6
2.3. How Recent Automation has affected different industries. 7
3.1.2. Data Pre-processing. 10
Future of Work in IT jobs and other jobs with IT skills in the United Arab Emirates
1. Introduction
The innovation rate is rapidly accelerating due to the emerging of several disruptive technologies. The forces of these technologies are characterized by interdependent elements in the current new industrial revolution [1]. The technological advances are laying the basis for all-inclusive and transformative change. As such, advances in technology have a critical role in supporting the growth of an economy because the adoption of new technologies and channelling them in the right way would enhance rapid economic growth [1]. However, technological advances come with their consequences. Foremost, they challenge the existing employment systems, influence production, and besides changing the consumption landscape [4]. Similarly, technologies come with their demands for skillful management of businesses and among governments. Some of the leading technologies in the current industrial revolution include the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, wearables, 3D Printing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) [2]. Coupled with the shifts in the global environment, demographic developments and changes in the socio-economic realities, the future of works in the information technology (IT) jobs and other jobs related to IT skills will be different compared to the current job market. Therefore, there is a need for radical changes in governance, management and overall organizational strategies.
Based on this background, therefore, the focus of this study is to assess the future of works in IT jobs and other jobs with IT skills. The focus area is in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries [3]. The paper is divided into three significant sections. The first section is the introduction, which highlights the focus of the paper, the problem statement, and research questions. The second section looks at the background and literature review by stating the search strategies and explaining various studies that have examined the impact of recent automation on different industries. The third part includes the data and the respective methodologies used in collecting and analyzing the data to attain the objective of the study. The fourth section presents the results and discussion for the data, while the conclusion summarises the content of the paper.
1.1. Problem Statement
The gradually emerging developments in the new industrial revolution hold a potentially immense influence in the life of future generations. Machine Learning (ML), Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT), among others, are significantly going to change the way future generations will work, communicate and trade. IT jobs and related skills are not an exception [2]. Already, the impact of these technological developments is increasingly transforming professional skills in IT and other related skill demands in fields such as construction, agriculture, automotive, and warehousing, among others. Notably, in some industries, employees with low skills used to engage in repetitive activities that relied on the use of stamina instead of cognitive skills along the production chain [2].On the contrary, there are tremendous changes experienced in various sectors such as finance and banking as well as healthcare, which is continually automating production systems that preferred cognitive to manual skills. Researchers have studied extensive changes in the demand and availability of general jobs as the entry of technological transformation continues to take shape. Some of these studies have relied on the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database, which conspicuously fails to highlight details about distribution or the demand IT jobs and other related skills [1]. To cover this gap, the study undertakes to shed light on conducting an assessment in the future of works in IT jobs and other related IT skills in UAE and GCC countries.
1.2. Research Questions
The following are the research questions that would be utilized in achieving the objectives of the study.
- What are the skill factors that are most affected by advances in technology?
- How will the advances in technology affect the works in IT jobs and other related IT skills in UAE and GCC countries?
1.3. Research Objectives
The following are the objectives of the study;
- To identify the skill factors that are most affected by the advances in technology.
- To examine the influence of advances in technology on future works in IT jobs and other related IT skills in UAE and GCC countries.
2. Background and Literature Review
2.1. Literature Search Strategy
The study that informed the basis of this research is the “The Future of Jobs in the Middle East,” which was a research study informed by the World Government Summit, 2018, in collaboration with McKinsey & Company. The World Government Summit is a program dedicated to shaping the future of governments worldwide [1]. In their works, they examine the changes in the modern working environment attributed to transformations in technological advances [4].The study also looked at the potential of workforce automation in the Middle East, taking a case of six countries, that is, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain [1]. Their findings reveal that most of the future works are likely to be highly automated, with the physical involvement of a human being reduced. Therefore, the development also implies that the demand for highly technical experts will be needed in facilitatingthese developments.
The subsequent literature reviews were based on the references from the above searches. This implies the references highlighted from the above basis referenced were adopted and reviewed to expound on the literature content of the paper. The subsequent sections examine the research background information, and the developments in automation technologies have affected a variety of industries, cross-examining the Middle East case.
2.2. Background Review
The future of work in IT jobs would be affected by disruptive technological developments that influence their availability, required skills, and characteristics defining future jobs. For instance, jobs that are currently available in the labor market never existedten years ago [5]. Subsequently, the same pattern is poised to continue. Similarly,the fast adoption of technologies would significantly affect the accuracy speed of production, innovation, and efficiency. The development cuts across all the stages from manufacturing through to tertiary production, thus rendering previous systems and processes outdated. As a result, most countries are now concentrating on the strategies that can accommodate the changing patterns of future works [5]. In this respect, UAE and most GCC countries have been establishing themselves as amongst the critical leaders in information communication technology (ICT) giants in the region. For instance, UAE ranks 26th globally according to the report of the Network Readiness Index [1]. The achievements are being made possible by the intention of the government to enhance digital connectivity. As such, in the past sixteen years, significant developments have been realized in the management of data and cloud computing as well as cybersecurity, which have attracted foreign direct investment [6]. Thus, these advances are uniquely influencing transformations in the economies of these countries, which promises tremendous shakeup in the labor market particularly among the IT employees and related skills.
2.3. How Recent Automation has affected different industries
The new automation has either raised the cost of labor or displaced absolute labor force out of the market. Despite the negative sentiments that have been attributed to automation, in most cases, new technologies have served to redefine instead of eliminating jobs [5, 14]. For instance, in most kiosks at the airports, automation has reshaped skills of the type of workforce, which has enhanced attention to dedicated and complicated services. The issues of streamlining airline check-ins have been automated, further improving efficiency in terms of reduction of customers queueing time. Similarly, in warehouses, robotics technology has been significant in fulfilling orders [1] [7]. Irrespective of their services, human labor is highly required to provide services that are characterized by unpredictability, require judgment or excellent motor skills. Thus, automation has helped human workers to perfect in their areas of work and increased performance across industries. The subsequent discussions examine the impact of automation in specific industries, some of which include automotive and marketing.
2.3.1. Automotive Industry
According to Skouby et al. [12, 13], the automotive industry was among the first sector to adopt automated technologies. The automotive industry lines of production are already characterized by the use of the latest robotics technologies. Automation is emerging as critical technology particularly in manufacturing and other production-related services. As a result, jobs have been transformed and most of them become highly complicated [3, 16]. Some IT-led skills are being implemented by machines, which are automated to enhance massive production at relatively low costs. For example, looking at the case of Tesla Motors Inc., the Company adopted autonomous features in over 72,000 of its electric cars [1, 12]. These cars are internet-connected purposely to collect information that could aid the company in improving automotive algorithms. However, their autopilot systems have had challenges with crash thus raising concerns about these technologies.
Regardless, automotive technologies are at its adoption stages, and further improvements are expected. Besides, these improvements have both intrinsic and extrinsic impact on IT jobs and related skills in the industry, especially in the pilot, driving, and processing skill areas [8, 15]. Intrinsic changes would be felt through partially automating such jobs such that pilots or drivers take the role of supervisors while extrinsic changes will include a reduction in demand for some of these jobs.
2.3.2. Marketing Industry
Automation technologies have been rapidly adopted in marketing, transforming the industry labor to a different level. Several marketing tools are currently being felt worldwide, with an estimated 48% of companies adopting at least engaging automation as part of their strategies in marketing [9, 12]. The percentage has been increasing, particularly among business-to-business (B2B) transactions. Equally, expenditures in marketing automation have been increasing significantly. For example, studies highlighting the case of the marketing industry in the United States projects by 2023, there would make an aggregate investment of over $23 billion in automated marketing [10]. Hence, specific jobs in the industry are expected to continue being redefined particularly those related to budgeting, management of assets and marketing calendar in an attempt to size marketing departments. Other industries that have had shakeup due to automation include healthcare, engineering, warehouse and logistics, among others.
3. Data and Methodology
The section discusses the methods used in collecting, pre-processing, and analyzing data to respond to the research questions.
3.1. Data Mining
Data mining is a process of ascertaining the patterns in a dataset. It implies “Text Mining” that encompasses methods that are used in extracting topics, analyzing sentiments, and predicting the market trends [13]. Hence, the concept is used to collect, assess, and ascertain the trends in data to respond to the objectives of the paper.
3.1.1. Data Collection
The study applied a scrapping technique to collect data. The technique relies on the Internet to collect available public data. An exploratory analysis was used the appropriate sites that have job postings, after which data was collected from several websites such as Naukrigulf.com, Dubizzle.com, Monster.com, and LinkedIn.com. This pool of sources provided sufficient diversification to strengthen the representation of the final facts obtained in the analysis.Besides, specific terms such as ‘demand’ and ‘supply’ were used in the analysis. Demand was used to represent the employers seeking particular skills, while supply implies the available skills that are required in the job market. The data collected was between 2006 and 2009 as well as 2009 and 2012 that was then used to project the future of the jobs market. The study aims to identify the trends in the skill factors as advances in technology continue being realized. The objective is to establish how the future of IT jobs and related skills will be affected. Hence, the outcomes of the study will serve to inform policy about the future of work in IT jobs across several industries in the UAE and GCC countries’ economies.
3.1.2. Data Pre-processing
Most data collected from open sources is usually unstructured, hence noisy, inconsistent, and incomplete. As a result, the data is left unexploited. The study employed pre-processing strategies to help make sense of the data. In this case, data cleaning, stemming, and additional filtering were performed. Data cleaning involved the removal of unnecessary words and stopgaps. Stemming was employed to reduce word content to its original stem. Then, filtering was performed to remove repetitive words that are taking over 90% of the content. The aim was to ease analysis besides increasing the quality and integrity of the data, thus the reliability of the results.
3.1.3. Content Model
The content model was used to highlight how the data is organized as sourced from open sources online. Information was uniquely organized in each part of the content model domain, as shown in the following figure.
Figure 1: O*NET Content Model
The model represents four main model contents, that is, employee characteristics, employee requirements, occupation-specific information, and workforce characteristics. Employee characteristics are about the qualities that enhance employee endurance. These qualities are essential to enhancing the ability of the employee to adapt to changing needs for new technological skills and knowledge. The employee requirement is about the particular descriptions that are acquired through education and experience. The employees must have developed the capacity to improve the acquisition of knowledge. Occupational – specific information describes the skills required on a particular occupation while the occupation requirement domain examines the elements that explain the requirement of a variety of occupations. The information for each of these domains is displayed in the Excel database, as extracted from O*NET.
4. Results and Discussion
The analysis results are in the excel worksheet Pivot Table and Chart. The analysis report reveals unique developments in the job market. Across all the job title levels adopted in the analysis, the skill with the highest demand is judgment and decision-making. This was prevalent during the 2010 to 2019 period. Overtime, the skills in this area have remained key in all aspects of job requirements, dictating employee characteristics, and requirements. The second-highest ranked occupation requirement is the management of personnel resources. The skill involves organizing and coordinating business activities to achieve desired goals and objectives. The characteristics defined under this skill include experience and knowledge in the management of people. Hence, such occupations are hard to be replaced through automation. The following table revealed the overall demand of fifteen (15) skills in 2014
Table 1: Cross-Industry Top 15 Skills Demand 2014
| Year | Rank | Skills |
| 2014 | 1 | Judgment and decision making |
| 2 | Management of personnel resources | |
| 3 | Monitoring | |
| 4 | Management Of financial resources | |
| 5 | Coordination | |
| 6 | Speaking | |
| 7 | Systems Evaluation | |
| 8 | Active listening | |
| 9 | Reading comprehension | |
| 10 | Time management | |
| 11 | Active learning | |
| 12 | Negotiation | |
| 13 | Management of material resources | |
| 14 | Social Perspectives | |
| 15 | Writing |
Table 1, it can be shown that the essential skills that were on demand include the judgment, decision making, and management of personnel resources. These skills have unique job requirements with particular knowledge in human resource management. The skills in IT come in handy at the support level [11]. The reason is that the skills demand direct involvement with human beings,thus presenting a unique definition of IT job seekers in such fields.
Table 2: Cross-Industry Top 15 Skills Demand 2013
| Year | Rank | Skills |
| 2013 | 1 | Speaking |
| 2 | Critical thinking | |
| 3 | Active listening | |
| 4 | Monitoring | |
| 5 | Judgment and decision making | |
| 6 | Persuasion | |
| 7 | System analysis | |
| 8 | System evaluation | |
| 9 | Social perceptiveness | |
| 10 | Coordination | |
| 11 | Management of personnel resources | |
| 12 | Time management | |
| 13 | Learning strategies | |
| 14 | Service orientation | |
| 15 | Mathematics |
Compared with 2014, the 2013 labor market had different priorities of skills. Table 2 shows that speaking skills were highly preferred, followed by critical thinking and active listening. These skills demand high cognitive experience. Based on the analysis, Table 3 makes a projection of 2019 and the future works to anticipated skills and how the works in IT jobs will be affected, as summarised below.
Table 3: Projected Cross-Industry Skills Demand Assessment in UAE and GCC countries
| Year | Rank | Skills |
| 2019 | 1 | Operation monitoring |
| 2 | Operation and control | |
| 3 | Reading compression | |
| 4 | Monitoring | |
| 5 | Active listening | |
| 6 | Time management | |
| 7 | Speaking | |
| 8 | Critical thinking | |
| 9 | Judgment and decision making | |
| 10 | Quality control analysis | |
| 11 | Coordination | |
| 12 | Writing | |
| 13 | Management of personnel resources | |
| 14 | Active learning | |
| 15 | Troubleshooting |
The ranking as per the projected skill distribution in 2019 and beyond indicates that most occupations require extensive support of IT skills. In this case, the report hence implies that besides intensified automation, the transformation in technology will highly rely on IT skilled employees to support the primary function of IT-driven systems.
5. Conclusion
The study articulates individual results from the analysis. As examined from the reviews on literature and subsequent analysis of the data collected from open public sources, the UAE and GCC countries’ future labor market is poised to a tremendous shift in the IT jobs and related works that require IT skills. The significant factors contributing to skill factors that would contribute to these changes in the IT skill demand include the employee characteristics and requirements. These are factors that would be based on the ability of the employee to learn and endure in the competitive job market. Further, the occupation-specific demands and related requirements are critical factors that would determine the ability and competitiveness of IT skilled employees. Subsequently, the study shows that the UAE job market is drastically adopting new advances in automation across all industries. These transformations imply that most job categories would be profoundly redefined to suit the dynamic transformation in technologies. Some of the extensively noted skills that the UAE and GCC countries would demand include management of human resources and other job categories that require cognitive skills such as judgment, monitoring, and coordination, among others.
6. Reference List
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- International Monetary Fund (IMF). United Arab Emirates: 2004 Article IV Consultation: Staff Report, Public Information Notice on the Executive Board Discussion, and Statement by the Executive Director for the United Arab Emirates. Issues 4 – 175 of IMF Country report. International Monetary Fund, 2004.
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