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I’ve researched and written about the future of work, and have seen that used as the justification for the big changes to university education announced on Friday. I’d make a few points about the jobs of the future. 1/15
The further you look ahead, the less useful the present is as a guide to the future. This is especially the case in employment because technology is hard to predict and changing consumption patterns are even harder to predict. 2/15
Some factors are evidently important, such as the ageing population and the increasing demands that will be put onto care workers. In the short to medium term, it is very clear this will be a major area of growth. But it is a lot harder to judge in the long term. 3/15
Artificial intelligence means that it is no longer just routine jobs that are threatened by new technology. 4/15
ICT occupations need not be numerically important to be strategically important. ICT sales professionals had one of the greatest employment declines projected for 2017-22. Computer programming may be done by other computers. 5/15
The type of skills (or ‘competencies’) that will be in demand appear likely to be those relating to creativity, problem-solving, collaboration, cooperation, resilience, communication, complex reasoning, social interaction and emotional intelligence. 6/15
They include empathy-related competencies such as compassion, tolerance, inter-cultural understanding, pro-social behaviour and even social responsibility. 7/15
Some of these are what universities used to call ‘critical thinking’, but there are also many social skills as well on that list. While ICT skills are likely to be important, they are unlikely to be sufficient on their own. 8/15
Choosing exactly the right field for a degree is less important than simply doing one. Employers will demand a more educated workforce (and continue to complain that it is not ‘work ready’) regardless of the educators’ ability to anticipate the skill needs of the future. 9/15
To that, I’d add the observation I made about how the government tried, in its publication yesterday, to tie future work to its decisions. 10/15
The government claimed measured private ‘returns’ for courses justified the different fees it wanted to charge. But its own data showed that there was no correlation between the two. 11/15
For example, by govt logic, law & economics should have 4th lowest fees, but in fact they're equal highest. Along with management & commerce, which by their logic should be right in the middle. You can see many other examples. 12/15
A more plausible explanation is that the marketable skills thing is just a cover for a financial/ideological agenda, to cut government spending, make students pay more, and stifle critical thinking in favour of vocationally-oriented thinking that can serve employers. 13/15
It could even be that that they perceive that many university-based critics of the government come from Arts or Business/Commerce faculties. ‘Critical thinking’ is a key skill for the future, but one can’t help but think that it is not something they want encouraged. 14/15
There’s some more commentary on the proposed cutbacks to university funding at https://johnmenadue.com/university-reforms-australia-by-david-peetz/?mc_cid=8c1bfc6b30&mc_eid=fc4c69780d For more on what I say about future of work see https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/realities-and-futures-work, esp ch 4. 15/15
