Teachers in demand for a ‘new world’ as tech is all set to eat away jobs

• Currently, 34% of all business tasks are performed by machines, and by 2027, 42% of the tasks will be taken over, says a WEF report.
• Machines now can do jobs that need reasoning, communicating and co-ordinating, traits that typically give humans the ‘advantage’.
• The world will also need a lot of non-tech experts like welders, drivers and specialised teachers to prepare the next generation for a new world.
• Employees need to be curious, creative, good listeners and also be willing to learn life-long.

Apps, platforms and more are changing the way we shop, buy, eat and even love. As predicted and feared by many, it has created a massive churn in the job market too. As automation seeps into every industry, the world will add 69 million jobs, but also take away 83 million in the next five years – resulting in a net loss of 14 million, says a survey by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

That means 2% of the total jobs in the world will be lost, even while 23% of the job market undergoes a churn, the report said. Currently, 34% of all business tasks are performed by machines with humans handling the remaining 66%. Come 2027, machines are likely to take over at least 42% of all business-related tasks.

“Technological advancement through increased adoption of new and frontier technologies and increased digital access are expected to drive job growth in more than half of surveyed companies, offset by expected job displacement in one-fifth of companies,” the report said.

The jobs that will vanish fast are in clerical or secretarial roles like those of bank tellers, bank clerks, postal service clerks, data entry clerks, and cashiers and ticket collectors, the report said. But there is another cause for concern too. Fewer machines have been taking over physical work but are now all set to take over the jobs that humans are good at.

Reasoning, communicating and coordinating – all traits with a comparative advantage for humans – are expected to be more automatable in the future. Artificial intelligence, a key driver of potential algorithmic displacement, is expected to be adopted by nearly 75% of surveyed companies and is expected to lead to high churn – with 50% of organisations expecting it to create job growth and 25% expecting it to create job losses, WEF said.


What will the world need?

In a world where machines can work like ‘humans’, the jobs in demand will be in technology, but are not limited to it.

As expected, the majority of the fastest-growing roles are in technology – AI and machine learning specialists top the list of fast-growing jobs, followed by sustainability specialists, business intelligence analysts and information security analysts. Then there are green jobs too – renewable energy engineers, and solar energy installation and system engineers are relatively fast-growing jobs.

However, as the world prepares for the ‘next age’, it is also banking on teachers to drive the change. In the list of 15 fastest-growing job roles, three kinds of teaching jobs made an entry — vocational education teachers, university and higher education teachers, and special education teachers. Jobs in the education industry are expected to grow at 10%.

Jobs for agricultural professionals, especially agricultural equipment operators, are expected to see an increase of around 30%, leading to an additional 3 million jobs. “Agriculture technologies, digital platforms and apps, e-commerce and digital trade, and AI are all expected to result in significant labour-market disruption, with substantial proportions of companies forecasting job displacement in their organisations, offset by job growth elsewhere to result in a net positive,” the report said.

Moreover, a lot of traditional non-technology jobs are also set to grow, like heavy truck and bus drivers, light truck and delivery services drivers, mechanics and machinery repairers, building frame and related trades workers, sheet and structural metal workers, moulders, welders and construction labourers.





Curiosity won’t kill the cat, might get you a job

As expected, the job skills needed are also evolving as AI is mimicking humans in the way they work. It’s not the work related skills that are core to a person, but over time analytical thinking has become a core skill.

“Creative thinking, another cognitive skill, ranks second, ahead of three self-efficacy skills – resilience, flexibility and agility; motivation and self-awareness,” the survey results indicated.

As the goal posts for technology keep changing rapidly in a dynamic and disruptive environment, employers are also expected to possess another skill – curiosity and lifelong learning. This is “in recognition of the importance of workers ability to adapt to disrupted workplace”, the report says.

Dependability and attention to detail, ranks sixth, behind technological literacy. The new world also expects people to ‘work with others’, and for that employees need to possess empathy and active listening; as well as leadership and social influence — one of the many that robots won’t take away from humans, not in the near future anyways.