Where there is a problem, there is also a solution. The decisions and choices we make today will determine the course of our lives and livelihoods. The technological innovation which defines our current era, and which is predicted to change most jobs can be used to set free human potential. If planned now, we have the means to reskill and upskill individuals in huge numbers. This would protect workers who have lost jobs or are predicted to lose jobs from hardships. It also supports displaced workers towards the jobs of tomorrow where they will be able to thrive.
As Yuval Harari says, “After all, what we ultimately ought to protect is humans – not jobs”. COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the future of work and made some jobs a thing of the past. To keep up with these changes, all concerned, that is students, college goers, parents, business leaders, and counsellors are on the know-how for future skills and jobs. The focus seems to be on soft skills like leadership, time management, critical thinking, and fast learning, with a special emphasis on problem-solving creatively as well as being resilient.
Hard skills for future jobs revolve around digital literacy, data analytics, and data visualization. When a person reads a book on a Kindle, considers the authenticity of a news report linked on social media or creates and shares a YouTube video, that person is displaying digital literacy. Data analytics collects data from research and businesses and helps infer it to make decisions. Data analysis can help companies better understand their customers, evaluate their ad campaigns, personalize content, create content strategies, and develop products. Data visualization is the graphical representation of information and data. By using visual elements like charts, graphs, and maps, the inferred and analysed data becomes easier to understand and work upon. These future skills are bound to digitalization, which will see an increase in automation of working processes and declining specific job roles. The decline is in jobs that are repetitive in nature and need little creativity. So, anything which takes a long time duration to complete manually can be easily worked on with a machine. Anything mechanical and dreary will be replaced to give optimal results. Even if a machine might be able to do something better than a human being, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the profession becomes obsolete. It might even give the profession better chances to fulfil its obligations. In not-so-far future, we will be able to use artificial intelligence to coach us.
People are and should always stay at the centre of our world. Jobs are a part of life and people should not be applauded for their employment, but their qualities. When thinking about the future, we need to focus on making possible a happy, fulfilling, and productive life for human beings and not just focus on which jobs might stop existing. To prepare future skills, a radical rethink of the workforce is necessary. Increasing female labour force participation rates would help to offset the working population declines. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education; technology workforce training; technology platform worker growth; and jobs in the green economy will become more important. It is the job transformation time.
Transformation doesn’t just happen, especially not overnight and that gives a competitive advantage to humans over machines. Technology-driven job creation is still expected to outpace jobs, the economic contraction is reducing the rate of growth in the jobs of tomorrow. There is a renewed urgency to take proactive measures to ease the transition of workers into more sustainable job opportunities. We can learn new things and move towards a different career path. Think about how many people work in social media nowadays. There wasn’t even a notion of social media three decades ago. Life and jobs are what we implement after analysing them with an open mind.
Jobs in the future will not vanish, they will be redefined. Being oblivious of the need for upping skillsets may be the only reason one would not have a job. What are safe jobs?
It is hard to predict what to expect in the next 20 years, but for the next ten years, people-related jobs and creative professions will stay safe. Post that, upping skills to be available for the job market is the way forward. Uncertainty can be pushed away, with training for the next level. After all, video games are fun due to uncertainty in the levels. That’s what gamers prepare themselves for. Jobs in the future will be no different. An attitude of resilience, thinking out of the box and a growth mindset sure will help.
