Recent surveys indicate that almost half of the jobs existing today will disappear in the forthcoming decades
Recent surveys indicate that almost half of types of jobs existing today will disappear in the forthcoming decades. Technology and automation will replace human labor, the labor market will undergo frequent changes, and people will have to adjust as they go. The employees of the future will have online profiles, they will be more connected, more mobile and more flexible, says an NGO called INACO - the Initiative for Competitiveness, in its Guide to the Jobs of the Future released this summer. The report, based on the latest findings of research into the economy of the future, looks at current trends in technology and predictions regarding tomorrow's labor market and economy.
Andreea Paul, coordinator of the project and president of INACO, explains:
"All the children who begin school today will be facing, when they grow up, a completely different labor market from what we have today. Two-thirds of the jobs in our society will be transformed. And this is only natural, because new technologies have emerged, which completely reset some sectors, from agriculture to trade, from industrial production to medicine, and common occupations, such as driver, might disappear very soon. Physical work will be replaced by creative jobs. Indeed, a very good motto is gaining popularity as far as tomorrow's jobs are concerned, and it goes like this: 'work smart, instead of work hard'. This means that all jobs involving physical effort, repetitiveness, hazards and so on will be automated, computerized, and this will simplify everyday lives."
The authors of the guide believe that the Romanian education system fails to properly inform and train the young for the professions of tomorrow. This is precisely why the community of experts with whom INACO has worked proposed a complex project to the Bucharest District 3 City Hall. The project is designed to make students of 13 Bucharest high schools familiar with the labor market of the future. The Guide to the Jobs of the Future will be the starting point for a number of interactive, creative workshops, non-formal education sessions coordinated by INACO experts who will encourage students' involvement and help them choose a line of work.
Andreea Paul:
"Our target for this year is to get into direct contact with 1,000 youths, parents and teachers, to show them what the professions of the future will be like, which professions are changing or even going to disappear, what skills and abilities employers will be looking for and, more importantly, how they can acquire these skills. These are the key questions that the INACO expert community seeks to answer in a simple, clear and reader-friendly manner, in its presentation of the Guide to the Jobs of the Future available online at www.inaco.ro. The Guide can be accessed by anyone and viewers are encouraged to click on each picture and discover short videos linked to it. All that points to the fact that everything we say has already been reported somewhere else, in a remote corner of the world, which is much more advanced than our country, and which emphatically sets the trend, technology-wise, for the entire world economy. It is such trends that we need to take into account. We're speaking about the 4.0 digital revolution. Whether we speak about robotization, of 3D printers, block-chain systems, virtual reality, resources of the future, means of transport of the future - all that forces us to recalibrate ourselves, to reset our education but also our investment in our own lifelong professional training"
INACO specialists have already made the first steps so that youngsters may keep abreast of the technological progress of the future. They have donated 3D printers and 10 kilos of consumables to students of a vocational school in a village in Iasi county, and to students of the Ionita G. Andron Technological High-school in Negresti Oas.
With details about that, here is the high-school principal Hotca Ovidiu Mihai.
"Children are already aware of the groundbreaking changes that have occurred. One example of cutting-edge technology is this 3D printer that we have received, and we explain to our pupils how far we can go in terms of technology. I saw there are 3D printers that are even capable of building lodgings, so children are very interested in that. In my opinion, and if we want to come full circle, these cutting-edge technologies should be used at industrial level as well."
Extremely sought-after in the future will be people capable to fill in vacancies in the field of assistance for elderly people, spatial tourisms specialists, drone controllers, or people working in services for robots programming and monitoring. Also in high demand are physiotherapists, kinesiotherapists, people working in the field of non-conventional energy, the INACO survey has also shown. The aforementioned survey also highlights that the new technologies will create millions of jobs and that completely new fields are highly likely to emerge.
Speaking about that, here is Andrea Paul once again:
"Some jobs are highly likely to completely disappear in the near future, such as door to door sales or operators in call centers. Loan officers will totally disappear in the future, because of the 98% automation of this market, front desks will disappear, the cashier service will be computerized, 90 per cent of the taxi drivers will be replaced by artificial intelligence in the future, according to specialists from Oxford University, while 80 per cent of the fast-food cooks will lose their jobs. Today McDonald's has large-scale programs for the robotization of their own kitchens. Instead, nurses, dietitians, nutritionists, surgeons - they cannot be replaced through an automation process, save for a very small percentage of them."
Although robotics has not been included in Romanian school curricula, Romanian high-school students, so passionate about the technology of the future, are among the world's best in contests where artificial intelligence seems to be gaining ground. For instance, at the International Robotics Olympiad in Mexico, the Romanian high-school delegation won the highest distinctions up for grabs in the contest, stepping on top of the podium in the nations' competition.
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