Career trends: the important skills you’ll need for job

Demographics, cultural trends, and new technologies are rapidly changing the job market.

People are living much longer than we used to. New technologies and automation are rapidly replacing repetitive jobs. New communication tools are eliminating formerly popular mediums for disseminating information (good-bye printed newspapers) at the same time as requiring more advanced media literacy skills for most new jobs.

After researching job market shifts for a recent Thinkopolis labor report, we’ve taken a closer look at how to choose education and training for the job market of the next five to ten years.

Key take-aways

• When it comes to landing a job, digital literacy is the new literacy.
• A dozen jobs that will always be in demand.
• Where the jobs will (and won’t) be created over the next five to ten years.
• Communications, tech savvy, and constant learning will be required for jobs in all fields.
• As long as there are people who like to travel, every sector of the hotel industry will need to be occupied.

Technology

On the bright side of jobs being replaced by technology is that this means a boost in technology-related career options. Every new form of automation or robotics requires engineers and technicians to develop and maintain.

The move from desktops and laptop to smart phones and tablets has created a current high demand for application developers and designers. Therefore, even we cannot predict exactly where the technology will be in a few years, we can rather advise people to keep up with the latest trends and tools of their time.

Healthcare

The aging population will continue to require more workers in a wide range of medical professions. Doctors, obviously, will be in demand, but also Nurses, Healthcare Managers and Technicians, Pharmacists, Care-givers and Elder-care Coordinators.

A mixture of healthcare and technology education would be a powerful combination. Biomedical engineering is expected to be one of the hottest fields over the coming decade.

Alternately, learning both healthcare and business management skills could also lead to numerous career paths in hospitals, clinics, private care institutions and public health departments.

Business and Finance

Businesses will continue to seek new ways attract customers and understand market trends. Data analysts, and market researchers will continue to be hot career paths for the foreseeable future.

Skilled sales people are always in demand. When making financial decisions, many people still like to talk to a human being and shake someone’s hand. That can’t be automated. For that same reason, financial advisors and financial services jobs will continue to be secure options.

Hospitality and Catering Tourism

With the current abundance of means of transport and the ease with which today it is possible to travel, even at low cost, the tendency of more and more people, when they have time, is to get to know other places. The diversification with which they choose to undertake a journey is also growing: there are those who choose to practice “slow motion” tourism, those who love to be accompanied by their animal friends, those who are attracted to follow gastronomic itineraries and there are also those who leave the intermediate generation at work and enjoy an adventure between grandparents and grandchildren.

Travelers almost always need places to refresh, so there will be constant demand for professions in the tourism sector such as chefs, waiters, receptionists, floor staff and many others.