It’s a question parents often ponder when considering their children’s education: what skills are required now to deliver job security in the future?
This is a bit like wondering what jobs might be needed in 2024 from the vantage point of the year 2000. The answer is nearly all skills and ever more workers are required today.
This is because at the turn of the century we didn’t envisage record levels of immigration triggered by a resources boom and the delivery of education services – at scale – to overseas students. Our cities surged as a consequence. More accommodation was required for students as well as a burgeoning bulge of Millennial knowledge workers.
No one connected the dots: more students, more knowledge workers and more (skilled) migrants results in a need for more housing. If this is to be Australia’s trajectory, we need the trade skills to deliver housing and city infrastructure.
In 2000 we did not question the logic of trade routes based on unfettered access to global supply chains. And, seemingly, nor did we consider the idea of buying and/or building nuclear-powered submarines. A pity, because such a project over the past 20 years could have deepened an engineering skills base aligned with the needs of a resources boom.
We need to be bold and lateral in our thinking about the future. I suspect we have followed a line of “safe future thinking” largely based on issues such as climate change and not enough on left-field events like a pandemic or a seismic shift in our strategic position.
Australians need to have confidence that someone, somewhere, is thinking about – is scenario planning, and actively war-gaming – a range of impacts that could shape our nation. It’s not enough to say “Oh, this is unexpected.”
What does Australia look like by the middle of the 2030s, when half of the Baby Boomer cohort is 80-plus? A decade of post-pandemic amped-up immigration, required to offset retiring workers, changes Australia.
We are focusing on the ramifications of artificial intelligence (AI) rather than scoping the need for jobs of the future. In the early 2030s we will need vastly more aged/disability carers, to the extent that this could replace shop assistant as this nation’s largest single occupation.
I have a contrarian view of the future of work: less focus on tech wizardry, more attention on delivery of basic human needs, such as security, care and shelter.
Repetitive jobs will continue to be replaced by technology. Petrol-pump attendants and ticket sellers disappeared a generation ago. Checkout operators are shrinking.
If Australia is to grow, defend itself, house its people and care for its aged, we need to allow a greater role to be played by those who deliver vocational training. The past 25 years have been the era of the university and knowledge worker (and the hipster); maybe the next 25 will be the era of the trade college and technical worker (the tradie).
This shift could start with parents being as supportive of their child choosing to pursue an apprenticeship or trade certificate as a university degree. I see an even greater need for technical skills in an Australia of the future.
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