Opinion How will Southland be coloured in the future?

Trend trend experts predict by 2030 the world will fall into four working categories. It’ll be global change and its speed will be mind-blowing.

Experience in the workforce will be difficult to measure because workers will cycle in and out quicker than before.

Where we ‘‘front-loaded’’ education in our early teens or 20s, the difference now, is children will have to have the skills and ability to keep learning new systems and new approaches.

For them, learning will be ongoing. And, it won’t be a matter so much of what they learn but how they learn.

The red world will be where innovation rules and new business models will be developed fast. It’s also predicted that the commercial value of learning will be valued ahead of university degrees.

Most people will be familiar with the blue world – corporate is King – and the big is expected to continue to get bigger. But how big will that influence become on the world and decisions made for everyday people?

The green world will be companies that push a very strong ethical and green agenda and the yellow world will be where humans come first. It’ll be a place where fairness and social good are dominant.

The key thing to watch out for though, is all of the categories will use technology heavily, and yes, that means some processes will be automated, and the workforce is expected to continue to shrink.

Southland needs to watch out for this because the reality is we’ve historically had a very strong traditional labour force.

It’s been a proud labour force, who have for years done many hours of manual labour for a variety of industries in the south.

But those jobs will be replaced by technology.

The Times is not immune to these changes. Our workforce has also shrunk.

If we want to attract workers to Southland, it is certainly true that we have a lot to offer.

A quieter pace of life, magnificent outdoors, close proximity to beaches, rivers and lakes. We have good schools and relatively low crime.

Yet, a lot of other places offer the same things. And, housing is relative depending on where you are. If the workforce won’t be large in the future, and there might be more ‘‘remote’’ workers, then this region has to do more to make it inviting for them to stay.

Will the south be coloured by blue, green, yellow or red?

If we want to leverage off our easy way of living to attract people, then we really need to step up to compete.

Southern Region Editor,