Jobs and skills will change

IN 2024, most of the world’s economies will continue to recover from the pandemic and move toward the new normal. The good news is that this could mean a higher demand for jobs. The bad news is that in most jobs, including the existing ones, the skills needed have changed and will continue to change.

John Maxwell warned, “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”

How jobs changed

In 2021, a LinkedIn survey revealed that skills for the same occupation changed by 25 percent from 2015 to 2021 in Australia, 29 percent in India, and 31 percent in Singapore. At this pace, the skills required to perform the same jobs in 2025 would change by 44 percent in Australia, 48 percent in India, and 49 percent in Singapore.

The industries where skills changed the most in Australia were recreation and travel (40 percent), hardware and networking (39 percent), health care (34 percent), transportation and logistics (34 percent), and retail (33 percent). In India, they are public safety (52 percent), nonprofit (47 percent), corporate services (42 percent), wellness and fitness (36 percent), and consumer goods (35 percent). In Singapore, skills changed the most in recreation and travel (49 percent), public safety (45 percent), health care (41 percent), and public administration (40 percent).

There are a number of reasons why there is a sudden change in skills requirements for both old and new jobs:

1. When a large number of mature, skilled workers retire, they create a skills gap.

2. Many organizations do not seriously train their workers for jobs that would be vacated by retiring employees.

3. New technologies have changed the structure of the economy and the occupations.

4. As the need for physical and manual skills declines, technological and soft skills become more in demand.

5. Companies and workers fail to re-skill and upskill themselves.

Whenever a new technology is introduced in the market, changes are expected in the business model, the mode of production, marketing and distribution. Therefore, employees must be trained for new skills needed in the back room, support services, the production line, and the delivery of the products and services. Middle and lower managers also need to train on how to manage employees with new skills.

This change scenario is true every time there is an industrial revolution propelled by technological developments. What accelerates the skills change even more in the Fifth Industrial Revolution is the introduction of generative artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum computing, and other technological breakthroughs that can simplify work in complex ways.

AI’s impact on jobs

Some experts think that with the full integration of artificial intelligence (AI), less than one-third of jobs will not be adversely affected, one-third of jobs could disappear, while the rest would require working with smart machines. At worst, the consequences could be dire: employees need to reskill or upskill to perform their current jobs, and the rest will need to retrain for skills on how to work with machines. In streamlined organizations, there will be lower demand for jobs, reduced hiring, and perhaps lower wages for non-AI-related jobs.

In a not-so-recent survey, McKinsey Global Institute predicted that over the next five to 10 years, AI technologies will transform the workplace as “people will increasingly interact with ever-smarter machines.” This scenario will bring higher productivity, GDP growth and corporate performance. It will also change the skills required of human workers.

In modeling the skill shifts, McKinsey found that the shift will increase its pace moving toward 2030. Demand for technological skills will continue to increase as the need for emotional (soft) skills grows. Demand for basic cognitive, physical and manual skills will decline. McKinsey estimated that between 2016 and 2030, the hours spent using physical and manual skills will be reduced by 14 percent, while the use of basic cognitive skills will likewise decline by 15 percent. On the other hand, the requirement for higher cognitive skills, social and emotional skills, and technological skills will increase by 8 percent, 24 percent and 55 percent, respectively.

McKinsey reported: “We expect the fastest rise in the need for advanced IT and programming skills, which could grow as much as 90 percent between 2016 and 2030. People with these skills will inevitably be a minority. However, there is also a significant need for everyone to develop basic digital skills for the new age of automation. We find that among 25 skills we analyzed, basic digital skills are the second-fastestgrowing category, increasing by 69 percent in the United States and by 65 percent in Europe.”

As businesses tend to adopt more advanced technologies, most business processes will be technologyaided if not done by smart machines. However, there will still be a niche where human beings can excel, as machines will be a long way from mastering social and emotional skills or soft skills. There will always be employment opportunities for humans who have empathy, initiative, leadership, management, entrepreneurship and advanced communication skills.

McKinsey’s survey of 3,000 Csuite executives in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US confirmed its quantitative findings (above). Top executives believe that in the near future, the most important skills are about AI, advanced IT, and programming. Social and emotional skills and higher cognitive skills such as critical thinking, creativity, decision-making, and complex information processing will also be in demand.

The integration of AI in the workplace will increase the incidence of skill mismatches that already exist today in many sectors.

Adjustments

The quality of talent in an organization will be a major determinant of its success or failure. Here are some prescriptions for CEOs and CHROs.

– Paradigm shift about talent. The CEOs must believe in the primacy of people (talent), provide lifelong learning, and instill a culture of excellence, resilience and sustainability.

– Adopt technology. Review your business processes and adopt technology to ensure better customer experience and employee experience. Train employees to use technology and improve their value creation and contribution.

– Restructure for speed. Change your hierarchical organization to encourage cross-functional teamwork. Hire people to join teams, not departments or sections, and give them roles, not job descriptions. Focus on and monitor value-creating deliverables.

– If the future of work is AI, train for AI. Everybody, including the managers, must have more than a basic understanding of AI and other technologies. Get AI experts in every business function, and train them about the business of doing business.

– Defer to expertise. Let decisions and implementation be made by those who know best, not by those who have the highest ranks. Train people properly and trust them to do their job.

Technology has changed the future of work. It will continue to render some current skills obsolete. It will also create opportunities for organizations and individuals who are quick to learn and adapt.

Inspirational trainer Brian Tracy said, “Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.”