ROLE WITH THE CHANGES

THROUGHOUT history, technology has simplified tasks and redirected workers away from certain roles and towards others, reconfiguring the workforce.

While some industries shrink, others grow as the shake-up creates new roles.

Digital marketers, drone pilots and app developers are three such jobs which have been created in the past decade because of new technology.

As the Fourth Industrial Revolution promises the widespread use of big data and artificial intelligence (AI), new roles will continue to materialise.

REA Group data scientist manager Glenn Bunker heads a small team in the consumer side of the business, which operates realestate.com.au, and says data science has become particularly big in the past five years.

“I am seeing lots of people diverging into this field with lots of different backgrounds,” he says.

“The number one (thing workers need) is curiosity.

“Science is all about asking questions and solving problems and making decisions.

“(In the future) there will be some areas where there are far less jobs but there are jobs being created at the same time, particularly in this space.”

Randstad Australia business concept development head Helena Turpin believes technologies will change a lot of roles – but not as quickly as some predict.

“Roles ripe for automation are anything repetitive or structured but there are very few jobs that are totally structured,” she says.

“It’s an evolutionary process. A lot of us will have time to adapt.”