When will lifelong learning come of age?

Last month's announcement by Amazon that it plans to spend $700 million (£569 million) over six years to retrain a third of its US workforce was eye-catching for many reasons. One was the price tag: even for the world's second most valuable company, spending three-quarters of a billion dollars over half a decade to retrain 100,000 workers is a huge undertaking. Also noteworthy was the firm's reasoning. Amazon explicitly attributed its move to the rise of automation, machine learning and other technology: the so-called fourth industrial revolution. There was a sense that the pioneer of online retailing, famed for its use of automation, was merely an early accepter of an inescapable truth that all employers will soon have to face: that the skills of their existing workforces will no longer have any market value as their old roles are taken by machines and new roles are created. The company reportedly has 20,000 current vacancies. But, for universities, the most conspicuous aspect of the announcement may well have been their omission from it.