It’s been said that 65% of students entering elementary school today will need jobs that
haven’t been invented yet.
What does that mean and how do we prepare for careers that don’t yet exist?
You’re watching FutureNow, videos about the future of tech and society.
Okay, so despite such reputable sources as the World Economic Forum using that 65% statistic,
there seems to be no legitimate original source.
However, it may not be far from the truth, especially when considering what exactly is
meant by a “job that hasn’t been invented yet.”
Some may argue Uber driver is a new job, but another could easily argue it’s just a modern
day version of a taxi driver, simply add technology and consumer convenience and subtract wage,
benefits, and job security from the driver.
Meanwhile, a report from Institute for the Future backed up by Dell makes the even bolder
claim that 85% of the jobs today’s learners will be doing in 2030 haven’t been invented yet.
Regardless of whether we can trust these statistics or not, it’s difficult to ignore the fact
that there is a major shift happening in employment and it’s only going to ramp up from here.
Just as the dawn of the Internet lead to a renaissance of new businesses and disruptions
in old businesses, automation, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and many other
emerging technologies are forming a Fourth Industrial Revolution that will change our
world in unknowable ways.
The First Industrial Revolution happen from the mid-18th century to the 19th century and
led our mostly agrarian and rural communities to become urban and more, well, industrial.
The invention of the steam engine and innovations in the iron and textile industries, kicked
off a fundamental shift in how people worked and connected the world in new ways with steam-powered
ships, trains, the telegraph, and more.
Every one of these inventions had a ripple effect across society and created hundreds
of new jobs.
Of course, it also centralized the means of production and the benefits of this revolution
were not universal.
Wages at factories were rather poor and the conditions were horrendous.
Not to mention the loss of jobs for craftspeople to machinery.
The Second Industrial Revolution from the late 19th century to early 20th century spread
industrialization further and saw the rise of electrical power and mass production and
such pivotal inventions as the telephone, internal combustion engine, light bulbs, cars,
and airplanes.
Once again, mass production led to greater productivity and as a result dramatic increases
in unemployment.
As the economy grew as a whole, many businesses failed due to dropping prices of certain goods.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but draw connections between this history
and the revolution in innovation we’re living through today, even though we’re only in
its early stages.
The Third Industrial Revolution, which happened in our lifetime and arguably is still happening
is characterized by electronics, software, and the Internet.
The Internet has connected the world unlike any other communications system before it
and has given rise to a greater ability to work from home.
The so-called “gig economy” is ironically similar to work in the pre-Second Revolution
world, when people manufactured products at home for sale.
As I discussed in a previous video about changing consumer habits leading to people declaring
Millennials are killing whole industries, the Internet and technologies like smartphones
have changed consumer expectations so that convenience is king and brick and mortar stores
are suffering because of it with the dominance of online shopping and being able to order
just about any service without leaving your home.
As every other industrial revolution before it, new technological innovations have positive
and negative impacts on everything including the economy and the workforce.
For example, while companies like Airbnb and Expedia.com have grown to multi-billion dollar
businesses, the number of travel agents has been halved in the same period of time.
And needless to say the popularity of Uber and Lyft has not lead to a positive outcome
for cab drivers.
And as automation and the digitalization of everything from services to products like
books continues, industries rise and fall, and the job market undergoes major shifts.
These shifts since the Third Industrial Revolution and going into the Fourth tend to favor growth
on extreme sides of the job market: low-skilled workers and highly-skilled workers.
Those who fall somewhere in-between are feeling the brunt of the negative effects of this shift.
So what is the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution?
The World Economic Forum loosely defines it as characterized by a fusion of technologies
that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is marked by emerging technology breakthroughs in a
number of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing,
biotechnology, The Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing and autonomous vehicles.
Of course one of the largest drivers of this job shift is automation.
The less “skill” involved in a job and the more routine the work is, the more likely
it is to be replaced by a robot or an algorithm.
A study of the labor force in 46 countries by McKinsey Global Institute concluded that
almost half of work activities globally have the potential to be automated.
That doesn’t mean half of all jobs, because there are very few occupations, less than
5 percent, that can be wholly replaced by automation with current technology, but nearly
every job contains some tasks that could be automated, and that’s where the nearly half
figure comes in.
Apparently this amounts to nearly $15 trillion in wages.
Because why would employers pay the same wage for half the work?
And they can also get as much work done with half the workforce.
But this means automation’s takeover will be slower than some seem to think and it’ll
start and indeed has started with humans and robots working side-by-side, complementing
each other’s work.
Of course, for some workers the effects of automation are happening much more rapidly,
mainly those that deal with repetitive tasks like data entry and manufacturing.
This means middle-class jobs working in offices, finance, and even law will also be automated,
increasing the polarization between low-paying and high-paying jobs.
With every prior shift in the job market, high unemployment has been avoided or reduced
back to normal through a redistribution of workers displaced by technology, but it’s
still unclear whether the same will be true this time around.
One thing is clear: if workers susceptible to automation want to secure their future,
they will need to learn new skills.
And we must reckon with the fact that the traditional education system is not keeping
up with the change in the jobs market.
Yes, math, science, and literacy will always continue to be important subjects to be proficient
in, but there are skills that our education system is not built to teach, but are critical
to surviving the future jobs market: complex problem solving, emotional intelligence, interpersonal
and social skills, creativity, leadership, and perhaps most importantly adaptability.
With these skills, you won’t be competing against robots, you’ll be able to take on
the tasks they’re not fit to do.
When choosing a therapist, I think I’ll still stick to a human over a robot, and despite
the rate of advancement in technology, these skills are unlikely to be perfected by machines
any time soon.
But how can we teach students and re-educate workers when our current education system
was created during the first industrial revolution and remains roughly the same, one teacher
instructing a room of about 30 students in a similar age group, the so-called “factory
model” of education.
This is how we’ve prepared students to join the workforce for nearly 200 years.
This is not a system that breeds creativity and stokes curiosity, it’s one that rewards
homogeneity, rote memorization, and the ability to pass standardized tests.
If you were to put a robot through today’s school system, it would be a star student.
Perhaps it’s time schools focus more on the individual, allow students to take on
passion projects, and apply what they’re learning creatively.
We don’t need to teach students to memorize and regurgitate information, it’s more important
to teach them how to learn.
There’s no way of knowing what jobs will exist in 20 years, so we can’t teach students
the knowledge they will need to do them, but we can teach them how to attain that knowledge
on their own.
Computer programming, for example, is a job in which just knowing a computer language
is not sufficient because the field is constantly evolving, so a good computer programmer is
staying updated on the latest innovations, always learning.
So a school can teach a student a programming language, but if they aren’t teaching them
complex-problem solving and how to be a lifelong learner, then they aren’t teaching them
how to code.
It’s why non-traditional education routes like coding boot camps and online education
are becoming competitive with the traditional four-year college route.
And many corporations are taking it upon themselves to educate employees and future employees
with their own programs.
But innovations in education must begin with the K-12 system, the education before the
university level.
Innovating education doesn’t just mean putting tablets into classrooms and teaching students
how to code, it means restructuring the system so that the students themselves have more
of a say in how they learn and success of individual students is not based solely on
how much of the same base knowledge they know compared to their peers.
I’m not going to dive too deeply into how to reform the education system, because I’m
not qualified to do so and it’s beyond the scope of this video, but the fact remains
continuing school as usual is not going to lead to the success of our students in the
future workforce.
And this change is not up to teachers, who only have so much say in how they teach, at
least in the United States, it’s largely up to state and local government and individual
schools deciding to lead a revolution in education.
As for workers currently in the workforce whose jobs are under threat or who may have
already lost their job to automation, consider looking into jobs that require empathy and
all the skills listed before, like caregivers and other jobs that are people-facing like
many in the health and education sector.
It’s not too late to learn a new skill either – take full advantage of these online courses
and bootcamps that offer an alternative to the increasingly expensive and multi-year
process of obtaining a college degree that is likely to only decrease in value.
But this shift happening in employment should not be solely on the shoulders of individuals,
it will also require policy to be updated and created to smooth the transition.
Ironically, the jobs that are least likely to be lost to automation are currently among
the lowest paid and thus least appealing, such as the previously mentioned caregiving
and teaching jobs.
We should push for these sectors of work to have greater benefits and pay to make pursuing
them more worthwhile.
Some have even called for policies that lead to a greater redistribution of wealth as technology-led
changes in the economy continues to increase wealth inequality.
Personally, I haven’t been particularly convinced by some of the band-aid solutions
that have been suggested, such as increasing taxes for companies that eliminate jobs through
introduction of artificial intelligence, and lower taxes for those who don’t.
Good policy embraces innovation, while ensuring the common man is not left behind.
We are entering a new world with old world legislation and education.
We need these both to be more flexible and forward-thinking.
The future of technology is set to lead to a better overall economy both nationally and
globally as productivity continues to increase and global trade becomes less challenging.
We need to ensure the only people benefitting from these changes aren’t just CEOs, investors,
and the already highest-paid workers.
How are you personally preparing for this future and what changes to education and policy
would you like to see?
Let me know in the comments, I’m almost certainly going to make more videos about this.
If you made it this far check out my new Patreon page for more ways to engage and support content
like this.
If you want to learn more about The Fourth Industrial Revolution, I recommend the book
with that title by Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, affiliate link in
the description.
Until next time, I’ll see you in the future.