Under Industry 4.0 the determination of new skills for labor in Turkey: Comparison of supply and demand of skills

In this research, the transformative effect of Industry 4.0 on labor skills has been investigated, depending on the nature of the work that has changed with the emergence of the Industry 4.0 process. The study consists of two qualitative study groups. Firstly, in-depth interviews were made with the business world, which gave the idea of the demand side of the labor force. The interviews/meetings were held with the senior executives of the companies, and most of the time, each executives of company were interviewed with both the human resources directors and the senior managers of the Industry 4.0 process. Thus, companies were provided with the opportunity to collect more detailed data on both the transition stories to the Industry 4.0 process and the impact of this transformation on labor skills. In this context, the number of participants constituting the demand side of the labor force is 41. Working group that formulates the demand side which consists Turkey's top 500 large companies have begun to build the infrastructure of the Industry 4.0 showing 11 different sectors and economic activities in four different regions of Turkey out of which 19 is limited to large-scale manufacturing firms. Their findings revealed the data on the developing/changing skills for the workforce needed by the companies in the Industry 4.0 process which resulted in the creation of skill sets. The skill sets obtained from the demand-side qualitative study group were classified and examined in five groups, namely, technical, social and emotional, cognitive, digital and multitasking skills. In addition, as a result of the skill sets arranged for both the blue collar and the white-collar job holders, it was observed that the demand side of the labor force (business world) had similar skills for both the blue-collar workforce and the white-collar workforce. However, it is stated that there is a need for higher quality skills to white collars workfprce compared to the blue-collar workforce, especially in perspective of technical and digital skills. The fact that the labor demand side has a similar skill requirement for the white and blue-collar workforce signals that in the near future the distinction between these two collars will gradually decrease. In addition, the labor demand side, education system in Turkey did not have the suitable breeding ground to cop up with the needs of skilled and qualified students/labor in the industrial sector, therefore, to cover up the situation various firms provided multiple training sessions inside the parameters of their workplace, which in interview was clearly stated by the firms' authorities. This point of view has gained importance and how the supply side of the labor for the collection of data that needs to be imparted to the students, so consequently, versatile workgroups qualitative skills in the education system were formed. Skills classifications obtained from the qualitative workforce-oriented qualitative working group were first shared and the opinions on what steps should be done in order to gain new skills for the workforce were obtained. The second qualitative working group of the study consists of the labor supply side (10 people), consists of experts, academicians and senior policy makers operating in the education sector. In this study the data was collected by conducting in-depth interviews with these 10 participants. Therefore, the demand-side working group and the supply-side working group consist of 51 participants in total. The labor supply side of the study is limited to vocational high schools, technical schools and universities. Since at the last stage, where students prepare for the workforce in the education system is vocational high schools, technical schools and universities, therefore, the results obtained from this study shows that skill and ability to supply the demand side were mismatch. At this point, the communication and mismatch are detected between the output of the education system and the needs of industry and therefore it demands the higher level for coordination for both stakeholders on the agenda. Keywords: Industrial Revolution, Industry 4.0