Changing the job titles
The future of work may not be as bleak as we think. Shaun Eade reports.
The world was a very different place in 1999. Video stores were doing a bustling trade, Kodak was still the king of photography and All Blacks fans were reeling after yet another World Cup meltdown.
The gurgling tone of dial-up internet rang through households across the country, usually followed by frustrated screams as untimely phone calls bumped the user offline.
Social media was nothing more than words, Uber was just a prefix used before the word cool, and sustainability was a concept rarely considered by those outside of universities.
Now these words form part of job titles for many in the workforce.
Many of today’s jobs did not even exist when those doing them were growing up. Technology may be leading charge in the changing face of the working world, but social and cultural influences are making an important impact as well.
Paul Gwynne has ridden that wave of change.
The Smart Phone Repairs store owner started his working life with the tax department, but when that quickly grew tiring he jumped into technology.
Never mind smart phones, the world was all about flip-phones when Gwynne started working at a friend’s computer repair business.
Now he can thank the development of mobile devices for being the core part of his own business.
‘‘More people went mobile so it all just transitioned,’’ he says.
Massey University’s Dr David Brougham says technological advancements have changed many job descriptions since 1999. Not all technology jobs are new, but rather an evolution of older professions.
‘‘You have an Uber driver which is just a casual taxi driver, a social media manager which to me is just a marketing manager, a big data analyst is just a statistician.
‘‘We tend to change the names of these jobs, but fundamentally that are very similar to their predecessor,’’ he says.
Social media expert Brent Ireland fits into that category.
Growing up, the extent of social media was MSN chat for Ireland.
But with the explosion of the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snap Chat, it has become a career path for the social media expert at Collab Digital.
‘‘When I was younger I had no idea this is where I would end up,’’ he says.
‘‘I wanted to do something fun and I think that social media is exactly that. I did not have an exact career in mind.
‘‘Then all of sudden here we are with social media.’’
New jobs are popping up outside of the technology field as well.
Nelson Lebo can thank the growing awareness for the need to be sustainable and environmentally friendly to him landing his dream job providing eco-design advice for ratepayers.
‘‘My job is to make people more comfortable, healthier, save money, help the environment and is completely free. In other words, I have the best job in the world,’’ he says.
The Palmerston North City Council eco design adviser never realised that a job like his was out there.
As a US high school science
"We tend to change the names of these jobs, but fundamentally that are very similar to their predecessor.'' David Brougham
teacher with an interest in houses, he took his students on field trips to the best designed, highest performance homes in the region.
Then he moved to New Zealand 10 years ago in search of a change of profession.
While studying towards his
doctorate, he bought ‘‘the worst house in New Zealand’’ in Whanganui and renovated it into an eco-friendly home that ran off an average monthly power bill of $27.
That would ultimately lead him to a job advising others how they can improve their homes.
Jobs like Lebo’s are safe from a growing world of automation, according to Massey’s Brougham.
Fears of robotics and automation taking all the jobs were over-stated, he says.
‘‘When we think of automation, we think of a robot or a piece of machinery that is going to do every part of or job.
‘‘But it might be that the automating is only a part of our job – the repetitive easy part. That just means that the job becomes different.
‘‘If we look at the accounting software, we still have accountants but they are doing more consultant work than work with the finer details of a ledger each day.
‘‘People have been talking about automation for about 40 or 50 years, about how there is eventually going to be no work for anybody.’’
‘‘These quotes are very similar to what we are reading today, yet it kind of has not happened. We have just created different jobs with different sets of skills.’’