How careers are changing?

The economic landscape changes from generation to generation and with the exponential increase of technology, jobs are changing more rapidly than perhaps ever before. With these rapid changes, long gone are the days that an employee worked for and retired with one company. More and more, youth and young professionals find themselves bouncing from job to job either due to acquisition, instability in the job market, outsourcing, or searching for other opportunities to advance their career. Furthermore, with the increasing rates of tuition and attending college, many young people wonder if it is worth going into debt $50,000 to $200,000 in order to obtain a college or advanced degree. To add stress to the situation, since 1979 has remained largely stagnant. The Economic Policy Institute found that wages of young college grads have been falling since 2000 and that “from 1973 to 2013, hourly compensation of a typical (production/nonsupervisory) worker rose just 9 percent while productivity increased 74 percent.” These statistics show the stark reality that overall workers are working harder, but overall pay has not increased, which may lead young professionals to live at home longer, delay major life events like buying a home, getting married, or having children. These are all personal and professional factors to consider when planning your career trajectory.

The rapid impact of advancements and breakthroughs in technology, automation, and artificial intelligence will dramatically change what the job market will look like over the next few decades. This will impact all workers, but will especially impact Generation Z, which was born in the mid to late 1990s up until the early 2010s. A June 30, 2020 article in Fortunly reports that Generation Z is at the highest risk of being displaced due to automation and that 33% of new jobs in the U.S. are for occupations that were not in existence just 25 years ago.

In 2017, McKinsey Global Institute research found that up to one-third of U.S. workers and between 400 million to 800 million workers globally could be displaced by 2030 due to automation. The research also suggests that the trend of increased income inequality will continue to rise with the risk of the middle-class diminishing. Fields that will likely be most impacted will involve fast food and restaurant work, machine operation and production operations, legal research and paralegals, construction, transportation, office and administrative support, farming and forestry. Careers that are least likely to be automated include healthcare workers, teachers, social workers, artists, and computer systems analysts, according to Investopedia. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that wind turbine service technicians, nurse practitioners, and solar photovoltaic installers will be the top 3 growing occupations over the next decade.