Skill Shift: Automation and the Future of the Workforce

Demand for Workforce Skills

Machines are getting smarter
High productivity, GDP growth, performance, prosperity
People will need to be more social/emotional - soft skills are more important
Basic cognitive/physical/manual skills will decline
"creativity, critical thinking, decision making, and complex information processing, will grow through 2030, by 19 percent in the United States and by 14 percent in Europe, from sizable bases today."
Data input tasks will be in the decline, machines can do these

Graphic on Skillset 1

Graphic on Skillset 2

Banking/insurance - number crunching jobs will decline
Social/emotional skills will still be needed for customer interaction
Energy/mining - Manual work will be displaced as machines can easily run diagnostics, collect data, read metrics
Healthcare - office support staff will decrease, care providers will increase
Manufacturing - physical labor decrease, more leadership skills needed
Retail - predictable manual jobs like driving/packing/stocking will decline as they become productive
- Sensors, robots, automated cashiers, etc.
- Decrease human interaction

It'll be a huge mind-set shift for companies
The way they work will be must faster and more dynamic
Might be a "new-collar" job that operates in between white and blue
- People who don't get cut will need to operate at a higher level because a lot of their tasks will be sped up
"Gig"/sharing economy will increase

Retraining - in-house vs. outsourced learning opportunities
Redeployment - unbundling/rebundling tasks
Hiring - sometimes less expensive than retraining
- Europe is much more willing to retrain
- US 35% of respondents said they would simply rehire or mainly rehire
- Europe: 7% would rehire
Contracting - bring in contractors for very specific knowledge set for noncore/low-skill roles
- Not for "high-skill talent"
Releasing - reducing work hours of some employees
- Could result in a loss of culture, satisfaction