Appleâs latest iPhone models, announced in mid-October, are the first smartphones built to connect with 5G networks. The promise of 5G, the latest major advance in cellular connectivity, is bringing everyone, everywhere, fast internet without wifi.
The implications are enormous. â[5G is] going to have a big impact on all sorts of industries from manufacturing to robotics to even self-driving cars,â said Will Knight from MIT Technology Review.
How will 5G impact the future of work? In reports from think tanks and talks from experts in the field, I found predictions that 5G will lead to job growth, better jobs, and reduced economic inequality.
What is 5G? Basically, the promise of 5G is internet access with WiFi speeds (meaning you can, for example, download a two-hour movie in seconds) wherever you have cell service.
5G is the âfifth generationâ of mobile networks. Muriel MĂ©dard, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, informally defined 5G as a âsuite of enabling technologies for ubiquitous communications.â Cellular service providers have been upgrading their antennas, cell towers, and frequency ranges since 2019 to expand and improve their cellular networks. Current 5G offerings are 20% faster than 4G LTE connection speeds and have much lower latency.
Considering the fact that 39% rural Americans donât have access to the internet at all and only 65% of Americansâ home internet is fast enough for Zoom, widespread 5G represents a massive change in connectivity for most of the US.
Some journalists are encouraging people to keep their expectations in check. Right after the iPhone announcement, Brian X. Chen warned that 5Gâs current technical limitations means the vast majority of America wonât see blazing-fast speeds anytime soon.
The Progressive Policy Institute recently released a report containing their predictions on how 5G will impact American labor over the next 15 years. PPI expects AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile to be âheading towards nationwide 5G networks by the end of 2020.â They argue, and we agree, that widespread remote work has intensified the need for wider internet access, including 5G.
CNBC calls 5G âa catalyst for the next industrial revolution.â Bloombergâs Nico Grant said thereâs a âbroad expectationâ that 5G will significantly push the internet of things (IoT) forward. One obvious ramification is a greater proliferation of âsmartâ factories.
Currently, machines in factories send and receive data via slow, low-bandwidth, high latency disparate networks. 5G will likely replace technologies like Ethernet, WiFi, and 4G LTE, making it more cost-effective to buy and set up robots. The end result is likely smarter factories with more automation.
For example, 5G has transformed a new Ericsson factory in Lewisville, Texas. There, remote support personnel assist on-site workers via augmented reality and remote pilots guide automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and drones around the facility, all using 5G.
While thereâs widespread concern that automation will drive salary decreases and job losses in the US, the data shows the relationship between automation and employment and wages isnât straightforward. Thatâs because while automation does replace existing jobs, it also creates new jobs.
PPI expects the technological advancements that 5G will help facilitate are likely to lead to total employment gains, not losses. They expect that 15 years after networks introduced 5G in 2019 5G and related tech will create 4.6 million more jobs than the economy would have otherwise created. They point to the fact that companies created 106,000 jobs as of April/May 2020 just building out 5G.
PPI expects 5G to significantly boost employment in Agriculture, Construction, Utilities, Manufacturing, Transportation and Warehousing, Educational Services, Healthcare and Social Assistance, and Government.
Lulu Tang
Even though increasing automation is likely to have a positive effect on overall job growth, itâs important to keep in mind that it may also, according to McKinsey, âwiden existing disparities between high-growth cities and struggling rural areas, and between high-wage workers and everyone else.â
PPI also expects the jobs created by 5G to be higher paying than the ones weâll likely lose to automation. âIn an important sense, 5G job creation is a countervailing force to job destruction from automation and globalization, and critically important in the post-COVID world,â the authors write.
Colleen Berube, Chief Information Officer at Zendesk said her company is focused on automation âat every turn.â She expects automation of rote work will help free up time for workers to focus on âhigher order workâ like analysis, strategic thinking, and creativity.
Engineers and software developers are going to be in especially high demand to make 5G a reality. Looking at roughly 50,000 job postings nationwide at the end of April, about 0.6% included the term â5G.â In late April and early May 2020 titles in job ads included âEngineer, Principal 5G Systems,â and âWireless Core Engineer,â and â5G Wireless SME / Senior Systems Engineer Level 6.â
Lulu Tang
Economic inequality in America is growing and is the highest of all the G7 nations. Meanwhile, economic mobility in the US has been flat (or declining) for decades and is lower than similar countries.
The vast majority of new high-paying jobs go to high-skill workers like software developers. âTechnologies have replaced workers on the shop floor and in clerical tasks and rote information processing, âAndrew McAfee told HBR. âBy contrast, big data, analytics, and high-speed communications have enhanced the output of people with engineering, creative, and design skills and made them more valuable. The net effect has been to decrease the demand for low-skilled information workers while increasing the demand for highly skilled ones.â
PPI believes that 5G will create jobs which donât fall neatly into lower paid âblue collarâ or higher paid âwhite collarâ jobs, but are instead âmixed âcognitive-physicalâ skilled jobs.â Weâll need installers and maintainers to apply and connect the sensors that power 5G for physical industries, including agriculture, energy, construction, manufacturing, transportation, and healthcare.
The PPI authors claim that productivity gains from digitization will increase revenues, job quality, and international competitiveness for industries like manufacturing, construction, and healthcare. However, they also claim that productivity gains will lead to faster wage gains. But that analysis seems to ignore how productivity and wage gains have split apart in America since the 1980s.
Lulu Tang
Even if 5G will create higher quality jobs available to workers at all skill levels itâs not a bad idea to keep your tech skills sharp. When asked how 5G and automation impacts hiring decisions, Berube said Zendesk is always looking for candidates with both domain expertise and technical proficiency. Southwick echoed Berube, saying that when Pure Storage is evaluating candidates, hard skills are âtable stakes.â In addition theyâre looking for workers with âhybrid capabilities.â For example, a hardware engineer who can also write software.
Itâs also important to remain cognitively flexible and keep abreast of new technologies. âWeâve enhanced how we think about hiring to also include soft skills,â Berube said. Zendesk is looking for workers who are comfortable with change and who are resourceful when solving problems.