Job market changes: learn and your future looks bright

Talking about the jobs of the future is almost meaningless, as many will become obsolete or are still to be created.

Data 61 scientist professor Bob Williamson in Canberra. Picture Kym Smith

Talking about jobs of the future is almost meaningless, according to Bob Williamson, because they are changing so rapidly many will become obsolete or are yet to be created.

Williamson, chief scientist and research director of the analytics program at CSIRO business unit Data 61, says much is being made about how computers, software and technology are changing society and will affect future jobs.

But he says technological change has been happening for centuries, and it is how we think about it that needs to change.

“People keep telling us technology is changing a lot faster than it ever was,” Williamson says. “But between 1880 and 1930 there was enormous change; the factory system, the growth of cities, cars, and what have we got now, better telephones? These days it’s often things that are purely software-related that are changing.”

Williamson, who is also a professor in the computer science research school at the Australian National University, recently co-authored a report on the future of technology and workforce skills.

In Technology and Australia’s Future, he looks at how significant technology is to human existence and, while it is constantly changing, how people need to adapt and re-skill to move forward.

“Australia’s education systems must develop high levels of scientific and technological literacy, as well as inculcate creativity and a willingness to tinker, which can facilitate the ‘learning by doing’ that underpins technological change,” he says.

“This will encourage experimentation, giving people, communities and firms the confidence to innovate and adapt under conditions of change and uncertainty, where failures will occur.”

Williamson says that despite enormous technological leaps across the past 30 years, jobs are not necessarily being made obsolete, but the way they are being performed is changing.

While blue-collar roles are going the way of the dinosaur with automation, people are still needed to run the machines making products, engineers are needed to design machines and technicians are essential to keep technology running. There may be fewer people in those roles, but many are highly skilled and qualified, and aware of looming change.

“The job I’m doing now is certainly not the job I trained for 35 years ago as an electrical engineer, I haven’t touched a circuit board for years,” he says. “People have adapted because the world never stays still.”

Generations Y and Z are considering where future jobs will be and what they should study for those roles.

Studying anything technology-related would be a help, says Williamson, including data analytics and biotechnology.

But he says it will be increasingly important to teach students about using devices, and the answer does not lie in “just sprinkling more computers around”.

“There’s a lot of improvement we could be doing in giving kids an enthusiasm for the power of technology and it doesn’t mean you have to be a technologist,” he says.

“One of the most powerful things where we can do a lot better is to get across to kids the creative power of technology.” That could mean using technology in fashion and creative arts, physical sci­ences, health, farming and anything at the crossroads of data collection and industry.

While specialisations will always be needed, Williamson says most university students would benefit from a semester of basic computer literacy and programming. ANU offers a subject to all undergraduates where they can learn abstracts and computer modelling and programming.

“You may run a company or be its business development manager and you have a problem, with programming you can keep track of things,” he says. “If you can’t understand what a computer does you could get suckered.”

Organisational best practice firm CEB senior director Aaron McEwan says business is being disrupted at a pace never seen before, and he agrees any technological skill will be an asset when job hunting.

McEwan attended the inaugural meeting of the Asian Human Resources 10 in Singapore last month to discuss the industry’s future, and says technology and the emerging knowledge economy were hot topics.

“What we need is people who are creative and collaborative and find opportunities as technology is being rolled out,” McEwan says. He sees an increasing need for robotics and automation skills, where new jobs such as avatar agents will be created.

“As the virtual world takes shape many people are predicting there will be a rise in roles about managing your digital presence in the same way as a talent or sports agent,” he says. “It’s already happening with people managing your online presence. There will be people who manage our online world for us.”

McEwan says people should prepare for digital disruption and adapt to changing industries, including retraining.

But there is also a shift away from hard to soft skills, and more university students are finishing undergraduate degrees with multifunctional talents.

“We’re already seeing a generation preparing for a world that isn’t about jobs for life or a technical speciality,” McEwan says. “The biggest problem is organisational ability to keep up.”

He says companies will have to adapt to changing management styles, demands for collaboration, flexibility and attracting creative people with bright ideas.

Last month the Australian Council of Learned Academies released a report prepared by its chairman, Stuart Cunningham, and others, which noted Australia’s top-flight innovators would draw on a mix of skills — creative, business and technical — to tap new sources of wealth.

Cunningham, a professor at the Queensland University of Technology, says that while STEM expertise (science, technology, engineering and maths) is necessary, deep content knowledge and technical skills need to be complemented by other disciplines, and in future workers will need broader attributes to constantly reinvent their businesses and jobs.

The report correlates findings of a review of 4.2 million job ads across the past three years, which found a 212 per cent increase in jobs demanding digital literacy, a 158 per cent rise in jobs demanding critical thinking and a 65 per cent rise in ads wanting creativity.