Industrial Revolution 4.0: A New Challenge to Brunei Darussalam's Unemployment Issue

Introduction

Brunei Darussalam has been facing unemployment issue in the past few years. Unemployment among youths are seen to ever be increasing annually, due to a mismatch between the employees’ expectation and the skills that they have, among a plethora of factors that was addressed (Musa & Idris, 2020). With the upcoming fourth industrial revolution (IR4.0) which is the automation of everything, thus extensive use of machineries, robotics and sensors, a shift in the job market is anticipated. This paradigm shift will cause more employees losing jobs (i.e. increase of unemployment) and only a specific pool of human capitals able to retain their jobs because they have the necessary skills to stay relevant in the era of digitalization (de Pablos, 2002, 2003).

With the current unemployment issue in Brunei Darussalam, a significant portion of academia has raise the question of how developing countries would stay relevant in the near future and would the IR4.0 cause a further amplification of unemployment among its labor force. Brunei Darussalam’s long-term national development plan, “Wawasan 2035” aspires to keep the nation to stay relevant in the future, where the three outcomes and goals are for the people to be highly educated, skilled and accomplished, has high quality of life and for the nation to have a dynamic and sustainable economy.

Thus this study aims to investigate the potential challenges on unemployment that Brunei Darussalam will face shall it doesn’t move in the necessary direction to embrace IR4.0. In addition to that, this study will make analysis on the current education system that Brunei implements and the e-readiness of its society to further make conclusion and recommendation on improvements Brunei should focus into as a preparation towards the digitalization era.