Young people don't consider automation issues when choosing a career
Indeed -- the world’s largest job site -- has just launched a new research study that determines that almost half (49 percent) of young people in Britain are not taking the issue of job automation into account when choosing their career.
Furthermore, Indeed’s study reveals that 17 percent are not aware of the industry trend towards automation and the effect it will have on future employment both at the low and high end of the skills market.
Job automation, for those not familiar with the terms or concepts, has been a concern for a long time. Back in 1996, Paul Krugman imagined a scenario where: "information technology would end up reducing, not increasing, the demand for highly educated workers, because a lot of what highly educated workers do could actually be replaced by sophisticated information processing -- indeed, replaced more easily than a lot of manual labour".
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0 have proven Krugman to be correct with jobs in industry, particularly in the fields of manufacturing, processing and software development being increasingly automated. In the next decade millions of jobs in both the low skill and high skill occupations are likely to fall susceptible to automation.
Boston Consulting Group, Oxford University and Nesta, have carried out detailed studies regards job automation and have tried to identify which industries and roles are safe from automation, or if any will be.
The problem facing young job seekers is it is no longer enough to be creative or mathematical, as job automation will affect all occupations and at every skill level. However, according to a survey of 1,000 Britons aged 16-25, nearly half (48 percent) of young people say they have had no advice or information regards the trends towards job automation.
Paul D’Arcy, SVP at Indeed comments: "What advisors need to know is that we are dealing with a constantly developing job market, largely brought about by advances in technology. In this new job era, our data points to the future proofed jobs combining different skill sets, matching technical know how with creativity -- potentially a missed opportunity for UK jobseekers".
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