The Future of Jobs

For my first blog post of 2016 I thought it appropriate to feature a 'future focused' piece. As the parent of an 18 year old who is currently assessing his career options I was interested to read this morning a report from the World Economic Forum titled The Future of Jobs that has just been released. 

The report is premised on the idea that the world is currently in the midst of a Fourth Industrial Revolution, characterised by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. The authors argue that this revolution is not simply an extension of the digital revolution that began in the middle of the last century. While it builds on the developments of this revolution, it is significantly different in three ways: 1. the speed of the development, 2. the scope of what is affected, and 3. the impact on systems change. 

Key drivers of change in this revolution are the emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing.

This interests me as an educator as I consider how these things are (or aren't) reflected in our curriculum – not as an argument for introducing these as defined areas of study necessarily, rather, how seriously we need to consider the development of understandings, skills and competentices that will enable our young people to participate fully in a world where these things are shaping the way we live and the jobs we do. This is not simply an argument for increasing the focus on technical skills – a far wider set of skills and competencies will be required to thrive in this 'fourth revolution'.

On average, by 2020, more than a third of the desired core skill sets of most occupations will be comprised of skills that are not yet considered crucial to the job today, according to our respondents. Overall, social skills— such as persuasion, emotional intelligence and teaching others—will be in higher demand across industries than narrow technical skills, such as programming or equipment operation and control. In essence, technical skills will need to be supplemented with strong social and collaboration skills.

This is not a new message – this thinking is exactly what informed and underpins the emphasis on key competency development in the New Zealand Curriculum! The perspective added by this report, nearly 15 years later, is the reinforcement of how important and urgent it is that we take our curriclum seriously, given the data revealed here about the shifts in job types and opportunities that are occurring. 

While I hear a lot of talk among some of my colleagues about 'slowing down' and 'getting the basics right', we owe it to our mokopuna and tamariki to ensure that the things we prioritise in the precious time they are in our care at school take into account the sorts of trends outlined in this World Economic Forum report. 

A key factor for educators and our education system is to consider how we might re-think our approaches in schools and tertiary insitutions, given that the exponential pace of change. During previous industrial revolutions, it often took decades to build the training systems and labour market institutions needed to develop major new skill sets on a large scale. Given the upcoming pace and scale of disruption brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, however, this is simply not be an option.