[Viewpoint] Nurturing Industrial Talent in the Era of Digital Transformation

The world is rapidly transitioning into the digital era. This is the so-called Digital Transformation (DT) era. If we move swiftly in line with this trend, we can establish ourselves as leading drivers of the global economy; otherwise, South Korea’s status as an IT powerhouse will disappear.

DT is accelerating due to the paradigm shift in industries brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the expansion of non-face-to-face societies caused by COVID-19. The core drivers of digital transformation are digital technologies that have led the Fourth Industrial Revolution, broadly including fields such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, Cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), intelligent robots, 3D printing, and mobile technologies.

According to StartUs Insights, a startup statistics organization, startups in these fields are rapidly increasing, creating high-quality jobs related to them. In the United States, about 8,000 startups have been founded in areas using connected cars, lightweight materials, autonomous driving, and AR technology. In the emerging new industry of food tech, new startups are also generating jobs, with South Korea’s Baedal Minjok and the U.S.’s Impossible Foods being representative examples.

However, the difficulty in securing manpower remains a problem. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, 155,000 industrial technology personnel will be needed by 2029 in five new industry sectors: next-generation semiconductors, new metal materials, next-generation ceramic materials, advanced chemical materials, and high-tech fiber materials. As of 2019, the manpower shortage rate in these fields was 2.5%, and the shortage rate for master’s and doctoral-level personnel was 4.2%, indicating a serious level.

To address this, the government is promoting various projects. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy plans to invest a total of 244.2 billion KRW to nurture industrial innovation personnel in four areas: fostering new industries such as BIG3, innovation in core industries, carbon neutrality and energy transition, and industry-academia cooperation and infrastructure building. The Ministry of Education is working on the 'Industry-Academia Cooperation Leading University Project (LINC+)', the Ministry of Science and ICT is implementing the 'SW Professional Workforce Capacity Enhancement Project', and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups is promoting the 'Industry-Academia Cooperation Technical Skilled Workforce Training Project' to cultivate personnel for future strategic industries.

Through these efforts, it is possible to respond to industrial manpower demands and achieve policy outcomes early; however, the diversity of managing and supervising agencies by various ministries and stakeholders (universities, companies, research institutes, etc.), as well as segmented operation by ministries, may reveal limitations in effective response.

Therefore, the government’s industrial technology workforce development policy suitable for the DT era requires more efficient operation. First, it is necessary to closely analyze technological trends and market conditions in new technology fields and make bold adjustments based on the results. In particular, analyzing the trends of competing countries is very important. Next, a paradigm shift is needed in universities’ approach to cultivating advanced technical personnel.

The expansion of non-face-to-face education due to COVID-19 demands innovation in university research and education. Harvard University, the world’s top university, recorded its first deficit in about 90 years due to a sharp decline in tuition revenue caused by COVID-19, providing a significant lesson for our universities. It is time for universities to change their approach to workforce development. / Kim Kyunghwan, Dean of the Graduate School of Global Entrepreneurship, Sungkyunkwan University

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.