Core Powers for Future
It has been found that the ICT convergence, renewable energy, new material, bio-healthcare and high-end consumer goods industries are likely to be in need of approximately 110,000 more employees between last year and 2020. In particular, the smart home and intelligent robot sectors are expected to face a shortage of 54,600 and 11,900 employees, respectively.
The Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT) said on February 2 that 110,200 more workers are necessary for the five industries until 2020. “The number is estimated at 74,500 for ICT convergence, which covers the production of futuristic vehicles, industrial UAVs, wearable devices, intelligent robots and smart homes,” the institute explained, continuing, “The estimate is 6,900 for the renewable energy industry, 3,300 for the new material industry, 7,600 for bio-healthcare and 17,900 for the high-end consumer goods industry.”
According to the KIAT, the global automotive electronic equipment market is expected to grow at an annual average of 7.4% before reaching US$32.3 billion in 2020 and the domestic production of electric vehicles is forecast to show an annual average growth rate of 76.9% during the same period. Under the circumstances, 4,600 additional engineers are predicted to be required for the manufacturing of futuristic vehicles. The global smart home market is estimated to grow from US$56.8 billion to US$132 billion between 2015 and 2020 while the domestic market grows at a yearly average of 20%. If so, the number of required employees goes up from 39,000 to 94,000.
The global UAV market is likely to grow by 10.1% a year to US$9.4 billion and Korea’s UAV production volume is expected to jump from US$94 million to US$413 million between last year and 2020, requiring 800 more workers. In the robotics industry, the figures are estimated to reach 11.3% a year and increase from 3.2 trillion won to 8.3 trillion won, causing the number of required engineers to go up from 3,200 to 8,300. The wearable device market is poised to enlarge from US$6.6 billion to US$30 billion with the size of the domestic market growing 30% in an average year, and the smart home market’s annual growth rate is estimated at 20% in Korea and 18.4% worldwide. The shortage of labor supply is likely to increase 450% to 3,600 in the former and show an increase of 240% in the latter.
In the renewable energy industry, the ESS segment is expected to witness a 340% increase while photovoltaic power generation and smart grid require 1,500 and 4,100 additional engineers with the numbers increasing 17.6% and 24.5% per year, respectively.
In the consumer goods industry, cosmetics seems to be in need of 17,900 more workers in 2020 than in 2015, when the number added up to 21,800. In the new material industry, 1,700 and 1,600 additional employees are to be required each for carbon fiber and magnesium & titanium. The degree of employee shortage is forecast to increase 5.9% in biomedicine and 14.1% in smart healthcare, too.