SMEs in the 4th Industrial Revolution

Abstract

Apart from the emergence of new technologies, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is characterized by demographic developments that will provoke fundamental changes in the labor markets of many industrialized countries. This situation will especially affect small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are based in rural regions with rapidly increasing numbers of retirees and an equally rapidly shrinking population of young people. If these companies want to maintain their levels of production in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, they will need to pursue new creative strategies for attracting the best talents. All of this is true for Saxony, a highly industrialized German region with a large percentage of SMEs that is hit hard by declining birth rates and high levels of emigration, and the East Asian society of Taiwan that faces similar challenges. At the same time, many well-educated members of the young generation in both regions feel disrespected, underpaid, and without prospects.