What was largely left unsaid during the recently concluded Presidential election campaign that saw the election of Donald J. Trump, was that trade treaties and their impact was not the whole picture when it came to the issue of the decline of well-paying jobs in manufacturing to those without a college degree.

The reality is that many of these same jobs in the US, and the UK have been also disappearing due to advances in technology, particularly with respect to automation, over the same period.

Remarkably, this fact received little notice whatsoever in the recent campaign in the US although for some experts this trend has had just as much of an impact on job losses in the US over the last two decades as the migration of manufacturing jobs to Mexico and Asia.

The problem though is in terms of employment. Today, most manufacturing in the West and increasingly globally, is highly automated, doing more with less in terms of physical labour.

Bermuda does not have a manufacturing sector of any note but we have been just as impacted by technological disruption as other countries.

We have lost hundreds of jobs over the last 15 years or so due to the adoption of automation in a number of sectors of our economy, particularly in our banking sector, post-1998.

The next major disruptive trend to take place is likely to occur in international business with the introduction of blockchain technology. This technology will allow the industry to harness the power of distributed computerised networks. This will mean that the companies will be able to maintain their respective transactions electronically on a single, shared ledger that more importantly cannot be tampered with or fraudulently altered.

The savings will be tremendous. Blockchain technology, along with “insurtech”, or insurance technology, an analogue of “fintech” (financial technology), will revolutionise the way that financial services overall are managed.

As Michael Coles of Cedant recently asserted in The Royal Gazette, it will place the driver and centre of innovation in the global industry in Silicon Valley, California and not Bermuda. However, Bermuda-based firms stand to profit tremendously by the early adoption of such technologies.

Take a look at what is happening in terms of the explosive growth of insurance-linked securities on island, essentially a platform for the securitisation of risk. Bermuda is now the biggest player in the world in the ILS space.

But most Bermudians would never know it, as its impact on employment has been largely tepid at best for many of the same reasons highlighted above.

Simply put, the employment footprint in the industry is shrinking even while the industry itself continues to grow.

What of the deployment of artificial intelligence platforms? As we move into the next decade AI will create whole new market ecosystems and leave significant amounts of disruption in its wake, including thousands of white-collar professionals with graduate and postgraduate degrees.

It will literally replace thousands of professionals who now specialise in professions, such as underwriting, actuarial and legal services and others.

It is incumbent therefore that Bermuda must continue to reimagine and reinvent itself as it relates to both our private and public sectors. There are Titanic shifts occurring globally that we cannot ignore.

We simply cannot trust the One Bermuda Alliance to engineer this transformation as they represent the entrenched economic interests that is placing too much of a headwind to the kind of transformative strategic change that is needed. Concentrated economic power is the enemy here and the OBA represents that. But what is to be done in anticipation of these trends?

Firstly, as mentioned in the Progressive Labour Party’s “Vision 2025” response to the 2016 Throne Speech we need to implement Job Corps as recommended by Columbia University’s Professor Ronald Mincy.

We need to do this so that we can give our young people, especially our young adults, a second chance at securing technical and other forms of training, in order for them to achieve gainful employment with qualifications, in partnership with the private sector, so that jobs are waiting for them upon completion.

This would include training in information and communications technology.

Secondly, to ensure that all of our public schools have wi-fi and those students without tablets are able to obtain them.

Thirdly let’s ensure that Stem (science, technology, engineering, math) and/or Steam learning take pride of place in terms of priorities along with establishing targets for the teaching of coding and robotics to our students.

Fourthly, we should commit to enlisting the Oracles of the world and Bermudian institutions such as the Bank of Bermuda Foundation who could partner to provide the seed money ($600,000.00 estimated, held in escrow) that would underwrite the hiring of at least six or seven specialists and/or mentors to teach Stem subjects.

An initiative such as that — done independently of the Department of Education — could really take Stem learning in the public-school system to the next level. Public-private partnerships like this in the US have worked very well.

Let’s also ensure that our young students are immersed in the development of critical thinking skills at an early age of their development. This is key.

Let’s really make a national push to establish Bermuda as a regional fintech hub. In addition, let us make a firm and unwavering commitment to the green economy with hard targets in terms of implementing an alternative, renewable energy future for Bermuda dependent upon solar, wind and other emerging technologies. This should not be an option but rather a national priority of the highest level. Let’s us get it done by 2025 and in the process create a whole new industry for Bermuda.

A recent New York Times story reports that globally, “more than half the investment in new electricity generation is going into renewable energy”. And this represents over $300 billion per annum in investment.

The PLP believes that government can be a force for good and can be the catalyst for facilitating economic growth around key strategic investments.

We will also need to have a robust national conversation on the implementation of a legally mandated living wage regime, which would include a minimum wage for Bermuda to tackle the scourge of income inequality.

No one working 40 hours per week or more in Bermuda should be forced to make that Hobson’s choice between either being a member of the working poor at home, or becoming an economic migrant abroad, by relocating to the UK, as too many already have.

The election of Trump and the Brexit result clearly show us that the geopolitical order is changing and will continue to do so.

To paraphrase the words of William Butler Yeats, things are falling apart and the geopolitical centre clearly cannot hold.

The advent of 2017 truly represents a time of great risks and peril; but along with that a time of great opportunity.

Rolfe Commissiong is a PLP MP.