Dr Bob's Blog

The good jobs ahead and who will fill them?

There are major forces driving change in the global economy of which New Zealand forms part. These forces are largely but not entirely unstoppable. These changes will have major implications in the way we make a living. It will not be business as usual. How do we as individuals get the best out of the changes that lie ahead. What do we tell our kids, and what can we say to those under 40 whose working life will be changed beyond recognition in the years ahead?

The simple answer, is, I believe that there will be plenty of good jobs that pay well and provide a basis for fulfillment and satisfaction. In the new world of work for people with the right knowledge, skills, ideas and the right level of awareness and understanding of the forces driving the workplace, will have plenty of opportunities.

However, performing with distinction in these new jobs will not be as easy as it was in the last 50 years. Each person will have to work harder and smarter just to maintain their lifestyle and standard of living. Indeed in a world that more and more recognises that resources are finite we will all have to settle for consuming less “stuff” and find our fulfillment and satisfactions in other ways. 

There are three forces that are converging and creating huge pressures for change.

The first is the micro-electronics revolution which has been around for a while, but is gathering momentum. This momentum revolves around the proliferation of the PC, the Internet, workflow software, outsourcing parts of the supply chain and the automation and digitization of many fields of work. This last force has eliminated a great deal of work and its impact has not stopped yet.

The second convergence is a new emerging business regime where the rules of business are being re-written. The Internet plays a huge role here. The new technologies force us all into finding new ways to do business. For example one of the largest suppliers of computers, Dell Computers carries virtually no inventory and assembles your computer to order. Dell also does virtually no manufacturing itself but outsources its parts from all around the world. The means of organizing whole supply chains exists and we will see revolutionary ways of organizing the food and fibre supply chains that New Zealand depends upon. It might not be the current players in the field who will do this.

The third convergence involves the emergence of Russia, India and China into the global economy. The staggering growth of these places will continue to spread shock waves through the global economy for years to come.

What has changed in the world of work as a result of the convergence of these three forces?

Routine mechanized tasks are disappearing in the most advanced economies either through automation or outsourcing to low wage countries. These changes have been very severe on those involved in routine physical work that in the past has provided middle income level wages for a significant segment of the workforce. These workers are very exposed to the three convergences. As well as routine physical work, routine clerical work is also in a very exposed situation and much of it will be replaced by automation and outsourcing to places like India. A significant proportion of  American workers tax returns are prepared in India.   

The good paying jobs that remain and that will emerge in the future will be much more complex. All work, even routine industrial work involves a residual space where the worker must exercise some judgement or discretion about what is done. More and more work is requiring a much wider space for the exercise of discretion and judgement as the routine work is either automated or outsourced to a low wage economy.  

The new middle class jobs that will not be at risk from downward wage pressure will come from those fields of work that are not at risk from automation, outsourcing, technological change and supply chain reorganization. These jobs are coming into existence all of the time.

They fall into two categories and they can be compared with a third group of at risk jobs. First there are those who are specialized and highly skilled. These people include the professionals in fields such as medicine and law.

Second are those whose work is based in a particular locality. This work often involves face to face contact with customers and ranges from medium range incomes such as local carpenters, plumbers, to low income work. Wages and incomes are set by local market forces of supply and demand.

The third at risk group includes those jobs which were once thought to be safe, but which are now coming under pressure. These jobs are in manufacturing and the food and fibre supply chains that New Zealand has relied upon for such a long time as a source of foreign exchange to purchase the goods and services we don’t produce ourselves.

To obtain the jobs in the first two categories or to be “safe” in the third group, workers will need certain skills and capacities that make them special, specialized or anchored and thereby able to reap the likelihood of rising wages.

What do these jobs look like?

The first type of jobs will involve the capacities to collaborate with others and organizing a wide disparity of tasks and people in a global network. Carlota Perez an expert on technology and socio-economic change says that “more companies will need various forms of coordination and management around specifications, compatibility, research and design, global marketing, distribution chains, data sharing and storage and security”. There will be a lot of new middle class jobs along that chain.

In my own work I am aware of a moderate sized New Zealand company in the financial services sector that has recently “dis-established” a number of positions and is replacing them with collaborators, who can organize a whole range of activities and events within the company. They are also replacing some workers with the next category which are being called the explainers.

The “explainers” are the people who can master the complex processes of the modern workplace and help people understand the new ways of doing things. This is a modern version of coaching, teaching and influencing. It requires that we all become teachers and develop our capacities to make things clear and remove doubts and uncertainties. Explainers also have a major role in helping customers resolve problems that arise in the normal course of business.

Because things are changing so rapidly we will all need to be much more versatile and able to adapt quickly to new ways of working. We will need to identify less with an occupation and identify with the talents we have and be one jump ahead and able to switch from one set of tasks to another as circumstances change.

The problems associated with environmental degradation and climate change will also provide opportunities for whole new industries to emerge that will provide many new middle class jobs.

There are a number of other potential fields of work that will provide the basis for new middle class jobs and you can read about them in Thomas Friedman’s book “The World is Flat: The Global World in the Twenty-First Century”.

In order to be able to collaborate and get people working together involves what I call enhanced communication capacities. Successful collaboration involves stitching together people with different ideas and opinions. This can be highly problematic where the stakes are high and emotions run hot. Securing a consensus that is the best decision and not just a compromise requires very scarce capacities. Reaching the best decision also requires someone with excellent technical capacities as well.

Explainers also need to be able to deal skillfully with people. Often an explainer is confronted by a hostile customer. This can be a very challenging situation to confront. Rarely did rank and file workers have to deal with these issues in the now fading industrial economy and so these capacities lie largely undeveloped.

These enhanced communication capacities require a much broader and deeper range of awareness that does not exist on a broad front, at this stage within the workforce. Many forward looking organizations are looking at the “spiritual” dimensions as a way of helping their people expand their range of awareness. It is well documented that many of the most successful people in a range of fields including business have an established meditation practice.

An expanded level of awareness will also be required as we all adjust to a lifestyle that involves the consumption of less “stuff”. There is simply no alternative to living within the limits of the Earth’s finite resources.

Rapid and continuous change also tends to destabilize our sense of identity and the meaning that we need to anchor our lives. Human beings cannot live without a meaningful understanding of who they are and where they fit into the world.

To handle the new “middle and above jobs” we will all need a sense of mission or vision about what we want to do with our lives. We will also need to have a clear notion of how we can add value or be of benefit to our organization’s end customer, or own customers if we are self employed. Moreover we will need what all successful organizations have, which is our own brand that captures where our talents lie and how we can make a difference in the world.

These are minimum requirements if you are going to remain in the middle or above. The other alternative is life in the social underclass.