For job seekers… essential skills in the age of technology | lifestyle

There is a global jobs crisis, especially very new or non-existent jobs, at a time when technological innovation is accelerating so rapidly that millions of young people around the world risk being left behind if they don’t learn the skills necessary to succeed.

And recently, with the great interest in the “ChatGPT” program of “OpenAI” and the renewed questions about the possibility of robots replacing humans in the field of work, and the invention of such a program does it is sounding the alarm for student writers, current employees and young future job seekers.

In fact, no one knows exactly what impact the chatbot will eventually have, or what future inventions and innovations will have on the labor market. But the impact of machines on the labor market is an old question that has been debated for decades.

Automation: the inherent danger

In 1821, the British economist David Ricardo added to the third edition of his classic Principles of Political Economy a chapter entitled “On Machinery” trying to show how the technologies of the early Industrial Revolution could harm workers and take their jobs away from them. . As for the novel “Player Piano” by Kurt Vonnegut, published in 1952, the author imagined an America in which automation would have eliminated most job opportunities.

On the ground, none of this happened. Humans have always been able to handle new technical innovations intelligently, and they haven’t lost their jobs. On the contrary, the productivity of American workers has increased 5 times compared to what it was before, according to a report published recently by the New York Times (NY Times) USA.

“The notion that automation is this looming threat is something we need to rethink,” says Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, a labor market research institute. However, he recognizes that these skills are changing rapidly and those who do not keep up with the development and development of their skills may be at risk, according to a report recently published by the American business magazine Forbes.

The real question that needs to be asked is not whether automation and robots will replace humans in the workplace, but rather what are the essential basic skills that young people will need in the future to not to be excluded from the labor market at the time of the fourth industrial revolution? What are the main areas that have the highest employment rate if they are known and mastered?

To answer this question, the Burning Glass Institute conducted extensive research, analyzing data from 228 million job postings over the past seven years, collecting nearly 30,000 in-demand skills – from welding to data – and classifying these skills into 444 groups.

4 skill groups

From this comprehensive analysis, 4 skill groups have emerged that are not only the fastest growing (having the highest employment rate since 2018) but also the most prevalent (appearing across a wide range of industries ):

1. artificial intelligence
2. machine learning
3. cloud computing
4. Production management and social media

The report found that in 2021, 1 in 8 job vacancies required at least one of these four skill sets. The research also revealed that there is a real and significant shortage of these skills and that “this shortage is here to stay,” as Sigelman puts it.

The report points out that people who master any of these skills receive very high salaries, much more than the rest of the employees in other sectors, according to Forbes magazine.

He also explained what he called “submerged skills”, meaning there won’t be much demand in the future, and they include: business consulting, sales, engineering and database management, website design and development. Low-demand jobs also include database managers, personal financial advisors, and auditors of all kinds.

other skills

In addition to the previous four skills, a study by the World Economic Forum – published in 2021 – mentioned a number of skills and jobs that will be in high demand in the future, including:

Forecasting cyber calamities

Besides the Corona pandemic, the major disaster of 2020 has been the massive cyberattacks sponsored by states or electronic terrorist organizations aimed at extortion and intimidation, and the ability to predict these attacks will be one of the skills and flourishing professions of the future.

Smart Home Design Manager

The most important lesson people learned during Corona, and with the long days and nights of the ban, was that a person’s home is their paradise and their last castle, and the idea of ​​smart homes grew. has recently spread all over the world. With its spread, the profession of “smart home designer” will flourish in the future, as homes will be built or existing homes smartly modified, filled with routers, controls, sound insulators, wall screens and means of protection, therefore in order to ensure the comfort and safety of residents.

Man-Machine Teaming Manager

The profession of managing teams made up of a mixture of people and machines will flourish, organizing and dividing up the work, so that robots do the tasks they are better able to do than humans, and vice versa.

And the one who will organize all this is the “man-machine” team leader who will act at the crossroads, ensuring a smooth collaboration between the two parties. It will also work to find ways and means to strengthen this cooperation and form a long-term partnership between humans and machines, rather than competition between the two parties.