We wonder lots of things about the future: Who will be president in 2021? When will we ride in our first flying car? When will our gray hair switch from a plucking situation to a colorist situation? Well, researchers seem to be able to foresee the answer to at least one of our nagging questions: What will viable work options look like a decade or two down the road? Here, a peek inside the crystal ball of careers.
Teacher According to LinkedIn’s Carolyn Fairchild, who analyzed a study by The McKinsey Global Institute, by the year 2030, “doing jobs that require human interaction (teachers) will become more in demand while… work that requires processing data (accountants) will fall by the wayside.” That’s because automation will replace much of the work done by human data analysts and financial reporters. Yep, CPAs, the bots are coming for you.
Manager “Soft skills” like effectively managing teams of colleagues will become more desirable to employers, writes Fairchild—especially when coupled with advanced degrees. So the next time you polish your résumé, be sure to highlight examples of your leadership and of course your kickass MBA.
Caregiver for the Elderly Thanks to aging baby boomers, the home healthcare business is, well, booming. “By 2030,” writes Fairchild, “there will be at least 300 million more people over the age of 65 globally... In the U.S. alone, if...more workers don’t go into caregiving, there will be a shortage of at least 350,000 paid care providers by 2040.”
IT Consultant Uh, that thing we just said about the bots coming for your job? Let us revise: Spending on tech is only going up, which “could create 20 to 50 million new jobs in both in-house and outsourced IT consulting.” So you might want to spend some downtime Koding With Klossy.
Environmentalist Scientists who developed a plant that may help combat climate change by sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere just won a $3 million prize at the “Oscars of Science” sponsored by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sergey Brin (among others). But they’re not the only green-leaning workers in line for a payday. According to Fairchild, “investments in renewable energy to combat climate change could lead to 20 million new jobs.”
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