Automation – It is affecting the landscape for all job segments!
From driverless cars, to virtual assistants Siri and Alexa, to robotics on the assembly line, rarely does a day go by without news of digitization, artificial intelligence and virtual reality impacting our lives in some way.
While it’s a fact that the job market has made remarkable gains in the past year, automation is destined to change nearly everyone’s job in some way in the coming year. To adapt, employees will have to learn new skills. “In this skills revolution, learnability – the desire and ability to learn new skills to stay relevant and remain employable – will be the great equalizer,” according to ManpowerGroup chairman Jonas Prising.
Talent management site HuntScanion.com offered thoughts on how the job market is being shaped by this automation onslaught.
The speed of automation is reducing the life cycle of skills.
Here’s an eye-popping statistic; it’s estimated that 45% of current tasks performed by the labor force could be automated using current technology!
Additionally, as automation accelerates, life cycles of skill sets are being shortened. It is only the expense of new technologies and the associated training of employees with the new required skill sets that make employers hesitant to embrace the latest wave of automation. Consequently, only 12% plan to decrease headcount as a result of automation. But, here’s the kicker. Three out of four believe automation will require new skills over the next couple of years.
Future demands regarding skill sets
Automation is leading a skills revolution.
It’s estimated 65% of the jobs Gen Z will perform do not even exist yet! Yet, some skills face a bright future. IT and customer-facing roles are anticipated to increase in headcount. Likewise, data analysts will be needed to make sense of big data, as will specialized sales reps to commercialize digital offerings. Value placed on different skills will change. The new skills will augment robots; things like creativity, emotional intelligence and cognitive flexibility that can also tap human potential.
As the speed of automation increases, employees will need to upskill and diversify into new areas. By embracing skills adjacency, agility and learnability, they will ride (and not be swamped by) the latest wave of automation.
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