6 min read ⌚ 

A Future of Jobs for All

Are you afraid that robots may take your job?

If not, unfortunately, you should be: it’s only a question of time before that happens.

But, where does that leave you? Can you do something to adapt?

It turns out you can.

The World Economic Forum – in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group – guides us “Towards a Reskilling Revolution.”

Who Should Read “Towards a Reskilling Revolution”? And Why?

In 2013, Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne published one of the most important studies of the last decade, titled “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerization?”

The study includes an appended table which ranks over 700 different occupations, “according to their probability of computerization,” starting with the least computerizable (probability 0.0028), recreational therapists, and ending with the most computerizable (probability 0.99), telemarketers.

After a while, BBC translated the study into a very neat tool which can help you find out how much your job is threatened by the rise of the machines in one second.

Ready?

Click here, type your job (or select the most similar one from the full list) and find out how easily you can be replaced.

If it’s anything above 50% – then you really, really need to read this article.

Sorry to say, but there’s 1 in 2 chances that it will be.

About the World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a Geneva-based non-profit foundation, “committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas.”

The Forum is most famous for its annual meeting in Davos, at which over 2,500 of the most influential people in the world discuss “the most pressing issues facing the world.” These include Nobel Prize-winning economists, political and business leaders, journalists, and even celebrities.

The people who attend the Davos meeting are usually called pejoratively “Davos men,” which should mean something along the lines of “wealthy supranational members of the global elite.”

“Towards a Reskilling Revolution PDF Summary”

Whether you like it or not, ever since the Internet revolution, the global labor market has been changing by the day.

Opportunities for finding stable, meaningful work that provides a good income have increasingly become fractured and polarized.

You may have had the luxury to ignore this so far – going about your business and all – but with the advent of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, everybody agrees that it’s only a matter of time before these changes start affecting you personally.

So, it’s better to think now and act fast than have to act when there’s no option B.

Say you’re a taxi driver!

With Uber, Google, and Tesla all constantly working on perfecting autonomous vehicles – are you really still sleeping on both ears and doing nothing to counteract the inevitable?

And what if you are a telemarketer or anything which includes calling people as part of your most important job activities?

Even worse: at Google Duplex, the Internet giant just demonstrated that they’ve perfected the Google Assistant to a level which makes it all but indistinguishable from a human!

How long before you’re told that you’re obsolete – by every single company in the world?

If you want to remain employable, you need to do something about it now; obviously, by something, we mean learning a new, more relevant skill:

The individuals who will succeed in the economy of the future will be those who can complement the work done by mechanical or algorithmic technologies, and ‘work with the machines.’

Leaders and CEOs, governments and policy-makers, mustn’t turn a blind eye as well: the future of companies and countries may depend upon “reskilling and retraining the existing workforce.”

And that’s where this article comes in handy.

Its authors have developed a new tool which uses bid data to find solutions for job disruptions and map appropriate “job transition pathways and reskilling opportunities” whether for individuals or whole occupations.

The tool is US-based and employs two distinct sources: the list of 958 job types prepared by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Information Network (O*Net) and Burning Glass Technologies’ database of over 50 million job postings in the US over the last two years.

Using them, the authors of this article were capable of quantifying the viability and desirability of a job transition between numerous possible pairs of jobs.

A viable transition is a transition between jobs which requires minimal training and education; a desirable one is in a direction which offers enduring stability and a wage similar to the one the worker is currently receiving.

The article is rife with tables and analyses which should help many different people orient themselves better in a highly volatile job market.

For example, if you’re working on an assembly line, it’s a good idea to start thinking about finding a new job in construction and extraction.

Also, if you are an inspector, tester, sorter, sampler and/or weigher, then think about becoming a production, planning and expediting clerk.

Some of the links are surprising!

For example, who would have guessed that if you are a printing press operator, you should reskill for becoming a farm/ranch manager!

Be sure to check out the article and find the most relevant to you.

Key Lessons from “Towards a Reskilling Revolution”

1.     The Job Market Is Changing by the Day
2.      A Robot Wil Probably Take Your Job in the Next Decade
3.      Reskill Without Much Effort in the Desirable Direction

The Job Market Is Changing by the Day

IT has changed so many aspects of our lives for the better, that we’ve all but forgotten about the one which may change them for the worse: the job market.

Namely, it’s only a matter of time before a substantial percentage of the world’s jobs are irretrievably replaced by machines.

In fact, the process has already started: think about autonomous vehicles and phone assistants!

A Robot Wil Probably Take Your Job in the Next Decade

According to a 2017 report by the McKinsey Global Institute, 800 million jobs will be automated by 2030 – and the rest are not safe in the long run.

Which means that at least 1 in 5 people will have to find a new job – most probably in another sphere – during the course of the next decade.

Are you that person?

Reskill Without Much Effort in the Desirable Direction

“Towards a Reskilling Revolution” presents a data-driven tool which analyzes all 958 jobs registered by the O*Net and uses one of the most advanced databases of job market opportunities to quantify the viability and desirability of a job transition between any pair of jobs.

So, if you live in the US – don’t be afraid to use it!

Like this summary? We’d like to invite you to download our free 12 min app, for more amazing summaries and audiobooks.

“Towards a Reskilling Revolution Quotes”

The path to a good life appears increasingly difficult to identify and attain for a growing number of people. Click To Tweet

Data-driven approaches can bring speed and additional value to reskilling and job transitions. Click To Tweet

It is our hope that Towards a Reskilling Revolution will become a valuable tool to move beyond the current impasse of polarized job prospects. Click To Tweet

The data-driven approach… may help to created greater transparency and choice for workers. Click To Tweet

No single actor can solve the job transition and reskilling puzzle alone. Click To Tweet

Our Critical Review

In assessing reskilling pathways and job transition opportunities in such detail and at such scale, write the authors of “Towards a Reskilling Revolution” in the article’s preface, “we aim to move the debate on the future of work to new—and practical—territory.”

It’s difficult to overemphasize how important

Everybody knows that automation is here to change the job market radically and irretrievably, but nobody likes to bother explaining how that affects the average Joe.

This article does exactly that.

And we can only wish that someone else follows in its footsteps.

(Eagerly awaiting the subsequent publications which, if we are to believe the authors’ promises, should extend the methodology “to include additional perspectives and geographies and applied in collaboration with government and business stakeholders to support workers.”)

Emir Zecovic

Emir is the Head of Marketing at 12min. In his spare time, he loves to meditate and play soccer.