The study, ASEAN in transformation: How technology is changing jobs and enterprises, published by the International Labour Organization (ILO) Bureau for Employers’ Activities, examines the impact of technology on workplaces in the automotive and auto parts, electrical and electronics, textiles, clothing and footwear, business process outsourcing, and retail sectors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). “Countries that compete on low-wage labour need to reposition themselves,” Deborah France-Massin, Director for the Bureau said. “Price advantage is no longer enough. Policymakers need to create a more conducive environment that leads to greater human capital investment, research and development, and high-value production,” she explained. The study, based on two ASEAN-wide surveys of more than 4,000 enterprises and 2,700 students, and qualitative interviews with more than 330 stakeholders in region and beyond, found that there is considerable potential for growth and employment offered by advanced technologies, such as additive manufacturing, robotics and the ‘Internet of Things,’ a proposed development of the Internet in which everyday objects have network connectivity, allowing them to send and receive data. The study warned that while mass scale job displacement is not imminent, about 56 per cent of all salaried employment in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam, is at high risk of displacement in the next couple of decades primarily because of declining costs and increasing accessibility of new technologies.