By Lee Hurley

We all know that automation will affect our jobs in the future. What we don’t know is how it will affect our future hiring needs. We can  offer educated guesses and we can look at the past as a way to predict the future but technology today moves faster than a Japanese train so the truth is we can’t say for sure how significant the change will be and how it will individually affect us. Most of us will have to adjust in some way to continue to work and earn decent incomes for our family. Let’s dig in a bit deeper? Mckinsey reports that between 75 million and 375 million people around the world may need to change occupational categories and acquire new skills by the year 2030.

Six things to consider in preparing for an automated future

1. Reskilling.

Good companies are constantly looking for ways to help their employees learn new skills to help complement new technology. Even if your company is not very good at that, your local technical colleges are.

2. The more you lead this effort the more job security you will have.

If you take the time to learn as much about new techniques as the person who is paying the bills, you will be in demand more than ever.

3. Robots don’t service robots. People do.

Jim Vinoski of Forbes says applying expertise is something that, at least in the time frame we’re looking at, humans will still have a comparative advantage.  Vinoski always says that some robots for some industries are just too expensive.

4. Automated processes that end one job creates another.

That’s true. Those are the jobs that become more technical in nature but expertise begins and ends in the human mind.

5. Automated processes make us safer and reduce some of the worst kinds of work.

We need to remember that we have taught robots to handle some of the most repetitive, boring and dangerous manufacturing jobs out there. Yes automation replaced a human but it most likely replaced an extremely bored human .

6. Supply & Demand

The more mass production we engage in the more the demand for less mass production one off quality products which are made by people. Vox points to Etsy, an online marketplace whose products are intentionally and lovingly not mass-produced.  Restaurants, wineries and breweries are other examples.

As the Brooking Institute summarizes: “Automation will bring neither apocalypse nor utopia, but instead both benefits and stresses alike.” Well said.

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