What’s over the job and career horizon?
There’s a lot of conversation going on around the future of careers and jobs, given recent manufacturing and mining redundancy announcements and it has everyone asking what careers and jobs are future proof and which are not.
Firstly many of today’s and yesterdays professions will still be around including – teachers, doctors, health professionals, retailers and many others will still be around in 50 years, but how they do their jobs, where and when they do it and how important it may be, will evolve over time.
The foresight issue is that today’s Grade 1 student will finish high school in 2025 and if they go on to further education, will eventually enter the workforce in the late 2020’s or early 2030’s. What will the world of 2030 look like? What career choices will there be? What will work be and mean to them?
If we already know with certainty that 2030 will be significantly different from today then how how do we get our children safely and competently between here and then? How do we educate them today for a world of tomorrow that we can only guess at, a world in which they’ll live to 120 years of age, work in well into their 80’s, have 6 careers and 14 jobs and work project and task driven, physically and virtually in a mixture of solo activities, in teams and across the globe.
What are the career choices of tomorrow. What and how do we teach our children so that are nimble, flexible and ready for this new evolving world? How do we cope and deal with the industries and jobs that will fall away between now and then and how do we evolve, find, accept and champion the industries and jobs of tomorrow?
This topic ran hot on ABC Radio Local and Australia and here are some of the other interviews I did Around Australia on similar themes and questions so for my views on all these questions and more have a listen now and then share your thoughts on what’s waiting up ahead for our children.
Jill Emberson – Mornings ABC Newcastle – Monday 13th February
Ron Tait Breakfast Program ABC South West -Western Australia – Monday 17th February
Kate O’Toole – Afternoon Program ABC Darwin – Monday 17th February
Sonya Feldhoff – Afternoon Program ABC Adelaide – Tuesday 18th February
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What were the clearest 2014 signals pointing toward major job and career shifts?
The 2014 employment signals that proved most consequential include: the Frey and Osborne Oxford study (published September 2013) quantifying automation risk across 702 occupations — including the finding that 47% of US jobs were at high risk — entering mainstream policy and business discussion; platform employment demonstrating at scale that the standard employment relationship was not the only viable model for organising work; the skills premium widening further as routine-task roles faced automation pressure while non-routine cognitive roles commanded increasing compensation; and the first AI systems performing specific knowledge work tasks (legal document review, basic financial analysis) at levels competitive with human professionals.
Q: Which sectors were showing the clearest job growth and contraction signals in 2014?
The 2014 sector signals showed clear growth in: health and aged care (driven by demographic inevitability); technology and digital services (driven by the continued expansion of digital infrastructure and applications); professional services requiring human judgment and relationship (those not susceptible to routine automation); and trades and physical services that required human presence and dexterity in variable environments. Contraction signals were clearest in: routine administrative and data-processing roles; manufacturing and logistics operations susceptible to automation; and parts of retail, financial services, and legal services where AI-assisted processing was reducing the headcount required per unit of output.
Q: How should individuals navigate career decisions in an environment of significant employment uncertainty?
Individual navigation in uncertain employment environments benefits from: honest assessment of which aspects of your current and target roles are most and least susceptible to automation; deliberate investment in the human-distinctive capabilities that automation complements rather than replaces; building a portfolio of capabilities and relationships rather than a single employer dependency; and maintaining the financial resilience that allows career transitions without acute distress. The HUMAND™ framework provides a practical tool for assessing any role’s human-distinctive elements.
Q: How can I book Morris Misel for a future of work, employment strategy, or workforce planning keynote?
Visit morrismisel.com/future-of-work or contact the team at morrismisel.com/event-organisers.
There’s a lot of conversation going on around the future of careers and jobs, given recent manufacturing and mining redundancy announcements and it has everyone asking what careers and jobs are future proof and which are not. Firstly many of today’s and yesterdays professions wil.
The shift around What’s over the job and career horizon is not purely structural. It changes what capabilities organisations value, how people find meaning in their roles, and what conditions make good work possible. Leaders who understand this early retain the talent they need and build cultures that attract it.
The most important question is not whether What’s over the job and career horizon will matter, but how quickly it will matter in your specific context. Leaders benefit most from mapping the ripple effects early — not just the direct impact but the second and third-order consequences that arrive later and hit harder. That is the practical work of foresight.
