WHAT WORK WILL LOOK LIKE IN 2025
THE EXPERTS WEIGH IN ON THE FUTURE OF WORK
A DECADE FROM NOW.
Anyone who grew up
with the notion that we’d all have jet packs and robot housekeepers by 2015
knows that predicting the future is a risky business. But as technology
continues to develop and various trends, demographic shifts, and other factors
create change, we are able to get a better handle on how our careers will
change in the future. To get a better insight, we asked the experts what work
will look in 2025. Here's what they had to say:
It’s not a stretch to
predict that technology will be embedded into just about everything we do. The
last billion people on the planet will be connected to the Internet over the
next 10 years, says Erik Brynjolfsson, professor at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology’s Sloan School of Management, director of the MIT Center for Digital
Business, and co-author of The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress And
Prosperity In A Time Of Brilliant Technologies. So, if you have a new idea,
you can reach a much bigger audience than ever possible before. That, combined
with increased globalization will create "millionaires and
billionaires" out of people who know how to harness those phenomena.
Janna Quitney Anderson is a communication professor at Elon
University, director of its Imagining The Internet Center, and the co-author of
the Pew Center research report, AI, Robotics And The
Future Of Jobs. She says that while
self-driving vehicles, smartphones, drones, and new types of work robots are
getting attention now, smarter ’bots, sensors, embedded systems, and other
connectivity drivers will take over many of our work and personal tasks over
the next decade.
"[Experts] especially
expect significant evolution in the delivery of goods and services thanks to
advances in interconnectivity, transportation systems and data aggregation and
analytics," she says.
Wearable tech will
become ubiquitous, collecting data about us and providing information to us as
we move throughout the day. Have a question or need instruction? Your watch or
glasses will help, improving productivity. A 2014 report by consulting firm PwC
found wearable tech adoption rates currently on par with tablet adoption
rates—which doubled from 20% to 40% between 2012 and 2014—when they were first
introduced.
FACIAL RECOGNITION
TECHNOLOGY WILL REPLACE THE NEED TO REMEMBER NAMES AND WEARABLES WILL BECOME
MORE OF A SUPPORT SOURCE THAN FRIENDS OR FAMILY
Respondents to the
underlying survey predicted that facial recognition technology would replace
the need to remember names (52%), and that wearables would become more of a
support source than friends or family (57%). Spurred by prompting and tracking,
42% said the average person’s fitness levels would increase dramatically and
46% said obesity rates will drop. Companies and individuals will be challenged
in protecting sensitive information and privacy as more and more data is
collected, the report found.
The jobs picture
either delivers on technology’s promise or plunges us into a dystopian future.
The same interconnected technology that will change how goods and services are
delivered will "hollow out" a number of skilled jobs, Brynjolfsson says.
Clerical work, bookkeeping, basic paralegal work, and even some types of
reporting will be increasingly automated, contracting the number of jobs
available and causing a drop in wages. And while more technology might create
new and different types of jobs, so far we’ve seen more job loss than creation
in these areas, he says.
Some work with become
more task-oriented, with more work available through crowdsourcing and
job-specific platforms. Uber is a good example, or Amazon’s Mechanical Turk,
which pays people to perform "human intelligence tasks" that
computers are unable to do, says Daniel P. Siewiorek, computer science and
electrical and computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This may provide increased flexibility, but it can be
tough to cobble together a living from "piecemeal" work, he says.
Who wins? Specialists,
the creative class, and people who have jobs that require emotional
intelligence like salespeople, coaches, customer-service specialists, and
people who create everything from writing and art to new products, platforms
and services, Brynjolfsson says. Jobs in health care, personal services, and
other areas that are tough to automate will also remain in demand, as will
trade skills and science, technology and mathematics (STEM) skills, says Mark
J. Schmit, PhD, executive director of the Society of Human Resource Management
(SHRM) Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia.
However, this
winner/loser scenario predicts a widening wealth gap, Schmit says. Workers will
need to engage in lifelong education to remain on top of how job and career
trends are shifting to remain viable in an ever-changing workplace, he says.
Many believe we’ll see
a greater acceptance of blended work and personal time. Schmit says millennials
already accept that, but will also further drive flexibility in the workplace
and that the baby-boomers who created somewhat rigid work environments are also
seeking greater flexibility to work where they wish and to be able to find ways
to balance work and family. The increasing pressure for paid leave may also
offer some relief from the relentless drumbeat of anytime/anywhere work, Schmit
says.
THE SAME INTERCONNECTED
TECHNOLOGY THAT WILL CHANGE HOW GOODS AND SERVICES ARE DELIVERED WILL
"HOLLOW OUT" A NUMBER OF SKILLED JOBS.
Schmit is optimistic
about the impact of technology on hiring and diversity. Technological
accommodations could spike employment numbers for workers with disabilities.
Brynjolfsson says that hiring algorithms may move us beyond the "old-boy
network" that may exclude some candidates based on gender, race, or other
factors and, instead more objectively match skill sets with job opportunities.
As awareness about the value of diversity in the workplace increases, such
algorithms could even be weighted to make workplaces more inclusive and the
hiring process will become more transparent.
While technology has
allowed many to work where they like, people haven't migrated to beautiful
beaches and mountains as Lynda Gratton—management professor at London Business
School and founder of the Future of Work Consortium, which analyzes workplace trends—would
have predicted a decade ago. Turns out, we like to be near each other, and
young people are increasingly moving to urban centers. Hot spots like New York
City, Silicon Valley, London, and Seoul will continue to grow, she says. But
smaller cities will see population increases, especially in millennials, who
are seeking more affordable urban areas.
In the U.S., a 2014
City Observatory report entitled The Young And The
Restless And The Nation’s Cities, found that some cities have seen remarkable growth in their
populations of 25- to 34-year-olds with BA degrees between 2000 and 2012. For
example, the Las Vegas metro area has seen this population grow by nearly 73%,
while metro areas like Oklahoma City (56.8%), San Antonio (50.5%), and Salt
Lake City (50%) have all seen fast-paced growth.
Anderson says some
believe leaps in innovation will "flip the world from an era of scarcity
to a time of abundance, predicting unlimited energy, food, clean water, and
increasing human-life extension," she says. Machines could carry out tasks
while programmed intelligence could act as our "digital agents" in
the creation and sharing of products and knowledge. Hello, Jetsons.
Brynjolfsson also
thinks that technology has the potential for "shared prosperity,"
giving us richer lives with more leisure time and freedom to do the types of
work we like to do. But that’s going to require collaboration and a unified
effort among developers, workers, governments, and other stakeholders.
"It’s certainly
doable. I think the road is likely to be pretty rocky between now and then, but
if we understand the challenge the right way, I’m confident we’ll be able to
respond to it," he says.
BY GWEN
MORAN
http://www.fastcompany.com/3046332/the-new-rules-of-work/what-work-will-look-like-in-2025
No comments:
Post a Comment