Jobs have always been subject to change and disruption, but not at the breathtaking pace we are suddenly facing. Some jobs are evaporating completely. Others will be transformed beyond recognition with radical changes in skill requirements. How can workers be prepared adequately for a productive career of 40 to 50 years without knowing what the future will bring?
A whirlwind of changing employment opportunities is upon us and accelerating. Dramatic and unpredictable shifts are taking place in the form of new products and services, trade patterns, applications of new technologies and changes in work organizations.
Automobile and equipment mechanics who used to troubleshoot and fix problems now rely on diagnostic machines that identify and adjust automatically faulty settings or identify components to be replaced. Medical X-rays and scans are transmitted to specialists in other nations for evaluation. Investment firms are displacing staff with software to design investment programs and financial portfolios. Knowledgeable workers in retail and wholesale sales are being rapidly displaced by the internet marketplace. And just as robots are replacing mechanical workers, many complex tasks done by the most highly skilled and paid humans are threatened by the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The recent Global Challenge Insight Report of the World Economic Forum undertook an extensive study of firms, industries and countries on six continents to explore changing skills requirements for the future of jobs. It found that virtually no industry or occupation or country will be untouched by these developments. It estimates that two-thirds of children entering primary schools today will be working in jobs that do not yet exist. Given the enormous and unpredictable changes in specific job requirements that we are facing over a career of four or five decades, workers throughout the world must prepare for unforeseen change.
Among industrialized countries, the WEF found that the changing nature of work was the top trend impacting industries and creating challenges for recruitment, training and productivity. How can workers be prepared to take advantage of new opportunities? Clearly, preparation for this future requires developing a broader range of skills than the narrower ones that are tailored to fit today’s occupational reality. Especially important are skills that will be required generically for accommodating broad and changing demands of jobs such as problem-solving, communication, group work and generalized understanding of technology and its applications. Changes in learning will be required at every educational level to accommodate the ability to adapt to new employment demands.
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Along with broader skill mastery, there must be a greater focus on the personality skills required to work collaboratively with others in vastly changing organizations where work roles are interdependent. Even today, employers are often concerned more about these skills than the narrower academic or technical ones. For example, a 2009 survey of employers in England found that acquiring employees with motivation, customer-handling skills, problem-solving skills and teamwork was a larger challenge than acquiring workers with adequate skills in reading and mathematics and other subjects. Surveys in the U.S. and other nations show similar patterns of concern. Workers must develop new strategies and behaviors to cope with new demands in their employment.
Two strategies should be implemented to accommodate adaptability for the new job reality. The first is to incorporate in the entire educational system a focus on the skills needed for embracing new job challenges. The notion that vocational education is largely non-academic or that students should specialize in either humanities or science and technology are counter-productive in a changing employment situation that will require interactions among practical and conceptual skills. For example, the liberal arts can add conceptual and design thinking that is often absent from narrower scientific and technical training. Consider the challenge of designing new products and services with vast market potential rather than simply preparing workers for routine and repetitive jobs, many that will be replaced by machine learning such as software coding.
The second is to provide educational and training opportunities for workers to acquire specific new skills that respond to emerging employment realities. Many of these opportunities can be tendered through online offerings by educational institutions, employers, and training organizations. U.S. community colleges are expanding rapidly their provision of short courses that lead to performance certificates for proficiencies in new skill areas. These changes are also taking place, albeit more slowly, in Asia, Africa and Latin America, often with the support of international organizations. But such opportunities must respond quickly and flexibly to the work changes that precipitate them.
Employers and government must develop the capacity to retrain workers for their new roles and responsibilities through public-private partnerships, building on both the generic skills required for adaptation and the specific need for new skills arising in the workplace. One model is that of the Danish government, which allots funding for two weeks of certified skills training per year, a practice found in several European countries, but especially in Scandinavia.
At present, many employers look for “just in time” workers, those only with the narrow training and experience to be immediately employable for the tasks at hand. Employer training strategies must shift to the premise that potential employees with strong work commitments and general skills can be provided with tailored training and support to undertake new challenges. As this future unfolds, workers who have developed the knowledge and skills for rapid adaptability will benefit from access to the best opportunities in a dynamic and evolving economy.
Overall, those countries that support broader educational preparation and more responsive training experiences will succeed in expanding job growth, employment, productivity and economic competitiveness.
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