Barbados Faces Job Losses as Artificial Intelligence (AI) Impacts Workforce: HR Expert Urges Retraining

Many jobs in Barbados may be on the line with the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) and technological advancements in businesses.

President of the Human Resource Management Association of Barbados (HRMAB) Nicholas Roberts issued this warning recently, as he also advised that retraining and retooling the work force to counteract the fallout, will be necessary.

Speaking during the press launch for a major HRMAB conference taking place in Barbados next month, the

HR management specialist said the reality was that “a lot of jobs are going to become redundant within the next few months to a year.” He added the aim of the conference, therefore, was “to see how we can retool and re-engineer work forces to meet the needs of the country.”

The theme of the conference being held on October 9 and 10 at Wyndham Grand Barbados Sam Lord’s Castle Resort, is Bridging the Gap Between People and Technology. The HR community will be discussing how best this can be done.

While pointing out he did “not want to create a panic” in the workforce, Roberts predicted that with the advent of technology and AI, “a lot of jobs are going to become useless”.

“We need to retrain the people to meet the needs going forward, because once those jobs go away, we are going to need people to fill the roles that will arise, because a lot of jobs that did not exist, will need people coming into those spaces.”

He suggested the service industry “will be seriously impacted,” but offered “where you need the touch and feel of people, if it is absolutely necessary, I think you should let that remain.”

Meanwhile, there should be a rethinking of the education system and the school’s curriculum to cater to the future workforce needs of the country, Roberts said.

“ I think that we need to start within the school system. Our school system is antiquated in terms of the way that we teach our children; in the areas that we teach them. We are being left behind in terms of many of the spaces that jobs are being created in internationally. We are doing a lot now in terms of catching up, but if we look at the syllabus in terms of what children are being taught, we need to look at the syllabus from as early as kindergarten right up to the tertiary-level schools.”

Next month’s conference is the first to be held by HRMAB since 2019 and the organisation is targeting business leaders and employers from both the Public and private sectors.