Remote work is no longer a privilege. It’s become the standard operating mode for at least 50% of the U.S. population. Virtual retreats are no longer attributed solely to progressive startups. Traditional employers are finally on-board and ready to propose a flexible work arrangement higher up the pipeline.
2019 will further reinforce the current global shift towards “remote-friendly” workplaces and dictate a few more unique trends.
Rapid technological change, with its impact on jobs, requires a constantly renewed workforce through retraining.
From switchboard operator to film projectionist, three industrial revolutions down and we’ve already seen many jobs wiped from the face of the Earth. Emerging technology is rapidly dispensing P45s, pink slips or termination letters to the next round of workers. More than half the global labour force will need to start reskilling and reinventing how they earn a living in the next five years, according to the World Economic Forum. Millions of roles will be lost, equally many more will be created.
Artificial Intelligence – specifically machine learning and deep learning – was everywhere in 2018 and don’t expect the hype to die down over the next 12 months.
The hype will die eventually of course, and AI will become another consistent thread in the tapestry of our lives, just like the internet, electricity, and combustion did in days of yore.
But for at least the next year, and probably longer, expect astonishing breakthroughs as well as continued excitement and hyperbole from commentators.
This is because expectations of the changes to business and society which AI promises (or in some cases threatens) to bring about go beyond anything dreamed up during previous technological revolutions.
AI points towards a future where machines not only do all of the physical work, as they have done since the industrial revolution but also the “thinking” work – planning, strategizing and making decisions.
The jury’s still out on whether this will lead to a glorious utopia, with humans free to spend their lives following more meaningful pursuits, rather than on those which economic necessity dictates they dedicate their time, or to widespread unemployment and social unrest.
We probably won’t arrive at either of those outcomes in 2019, but it’s a topic which will continue to be hotly debated. In the meantime, here are five things that we can expect to happen:
Bad news for workers in the American South and Great Plains: A robot could likely come for your job.
A newly released study by fintech company Smart Asset found that those regions are the ones most likely to experience serious job losses due to automation. And, even more disheartening, they’re the ones that appear least prepared to take the hit.
Social sciences and interdisciplinary studies on our majors list is no surprise, as these degrees are notorious for being difficult in the job market.
So you are trying to decide which degree to pursue in college, but you are unsure which degrees actually land jobs. Don’t worry, many students are asking the same question.
When you finally get to choose your own education, it can be daunting by the hundreds of choices available at most colleges and universities. Should you pursue architecture, engineering, secondary education, art and dance, political science, pre-med, or business? What about the lesser-known degrees like forestry preservation and art restoration?
No matter what your interests are, you are probably wondering if your passions can also lead to a job that won’t make you struggling to pay bills for the rest of your life.
This Map Shows the Largest Employer in Every State.
Take a look at this map. What’s the first thing that catches your eye?
If your reaction was “Wow, Walmart controls A LOT of the country,” you’d be right. This map shows the largest private employer in every state in the U.S., and Walmart is tops in an incredible 22 states. In total, the company employs 1.5 million Americans.
Here’s a full state-by-state list for you to peruse. Who’s #1 in your state?
Smart, hard-working but forward-thinking Millennials are changing the culture of law.
Headlines are filled with the impact Millennials are having on the status quo. Said to be changing the way of the workplace, they are typically characterized as less “pushy” than previous generations while holding stronger convictions.
Millennials are now set to define a new generation of business leadership, moving through their 30s and assuming senior positions. The legal industry – known for its aversion to change and tendency to cling to tradition (after all, lawyers were among the first to move from Word Perfect to Word) — is not exempt from this leadership transformation. This should be unsurprising where Millennials practicing aw now outnumber Baby Boomers and Gen Xers – accounting for 43 percent of attorneys. A recent survey by Cushman & Wakefield found that, by 2025, more than 50 percent of practicing attorneys in the U.S. will be Millennials. Boomers and Gen Xers are retiring and with them is going the traditional, strictly hierarchical law firm structure.
I’m Drones are edging evermore into the workplace, transforming the way jobs are done and enabling companies to save time, improve safety, and cut costs all at the same time.
Take this enormous window-washing drone. Built by Latvia-based Aerones, the machine aims to replace those human-operated cradles you’ve seen dangling on the side of huge towers.
Trades Union Congress concerned over tech being used to control and micromanage.
Britain’s biggest employer organisation and main trade union body have sounded the alarm over the prospect of British companies implanting staff with microchips to improve security.
UK firm BioTeq, which offers the implants to businesses and individuals, has already fitted 150 implants in the UK.
Fears that AI will make many types of workers unemployable are unfounded.
In the past few years, artificial intelligence has advanced so quickly that it now seems that hardly a month goes by without a newsworthy AI breakthrough. In areas as wide-ranging as speech translation, medical diagnosis and game play, we have seen computers outperform humans in startling ways. This has sparked a discussion about what impact AI will have on employment.
Some fear that as AI improves, it will supplant workers in the job force, creating an ever-growing pool of unemployable humans who cannot economically compete with machines in any meaningful way. This concern, while understandable, is unfounded.
The more bosses try to keep track of their workers, the more precious time employees waste trying to evade them.
Jason Edward Harrington spent six years working the luggage-screening checkpoint at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. A college graduate and freelance writer, he initially took the job as a stopgap, but found that he enjoyed meeting passengers from all over the world, some of whom showed a real interest in him. But while working for the TSA, Harrington noticed that his bosses were following and video-recording his every move, a practice they said was at least in part for his protection: If, perchance, a traveler’s iPad went missing, the videotapes would prove that Harrington was not to blame. Harrington was on board with that. His problem, he told me, was that supervisors would also view the tapes to search for the slightest infraction—anything from gum chewing to unauthorized trips to the bathroom. Eventually, these intrusions led him to quit. “If they trusted us, respected us, you could really enjoy the job,” Harrington told me. “But they didn’t.”
