How to reskill yourself for the future

Automation changes the skills’ mix of jobs

When jobs are augmented or impacted by technology, the skills’ mix required to perform the jobs will definitely change, some more than others. The skills re-mix will differ from job to job.

According to McKinsey, if you are spending more of your work time managing or leading people, then your job may be least susceptible to automation, as shown in the figure below.

In contrast, if you are spending a large portion of your work time doing predictable physical or manual work, then your job as a whole is highly susceptible to automation.

The shifts in skills’ mix are not new.

We have seen such shifts from physical to cognitive tasks and more recently to digital skills over the last century.

Pearson and Nesta found that many jobs we recognise will still be in demand by 2030 and beyond. However, these jobs will likely require different skills for success tomorrow.

Job transformation has already started, whether we like it or not.

The future of work is increasingly becoming a reality for millions of workers and companies around the world. The findings of the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2018 look at the trends expected in the 2018-2022 period covering 20 economies and 12 industry sectors.

Currently, an average of 71% of total task hours across the industries covered in the Future of Jobs Report is performed by humans, compared to 29% of total task hours performed by machines or algorithms.

By 2022 this average is expected to have shifted to 58% of total task hours performed by humans, and 42% of total task hours performed by machines or algorithms.

In terms of total working hours, no work task is yet performed predominantly by machines or algorithms.

And by 2025, only 48% of total task hours is predicted to be performed by humans. That is a decrease of 23% in a few years from now.

McKinsey predicted that more than one in three workers may need to adapt their skills’ mix by 2030.

Basic cognitive skills such as reading and basic numeracy will not suffice for many jobs while demand for advanced technology skills such as coding and programming will rise by 55% in 2030.

The need for social and emotional skills including initiative taking and leadership will also rise sharply from 18% to 24%.

Higher cognitive skills, creativity, and complex information and problem-solving will also become significantly more important.

Glassdoor’s best jobs in America research showed that there is an increased need for soft skills. It includes things like leadership, effective communication, listening, and collaboration.

Workers have to re-skill quickly to secure their jobs

Therefore, workers will have no choice but to re-skill or upgrade themselves to perform new tasks that future jobs will demand. These changes will be externally driven largely by the competitive business environments that organisations are operating in.

As manual or labor-intensive jobs are transformed into something totally different or are “lost” due to automation, Gartner has said that by 2022, one in five workers engaged in mostly non-routine tasks will rely on artificial intelligence to do their job.

It is without a doubt that new job types will be created.

Take heart that new jobs like data scientist and mechanical engineer will be more in demand driven mainly by the digitisation and consumption of information.

Time will only tell whether there will be a net job gain or loss due to automation.