Jobs of Tomorrow

The Fourth Industrial Revolution will offer diverse new employment opportunities.

In the decade since 2010, technological innovations have left many feeling concerned about the possibility of future mass unemployment as machines take over jobs currently performed by humans. In truth, little evidence exists to suggest that the number of jobs available for people will shrink; there is, however, a clear indication that job opportunities will differ from what they are today, in response to changing technology as well as socioeconomic developments. If current trends persist, emerging professions will add 1.7 million new job opportunities in 2020 and another 2.4 million by 2022. Such demand could add $11.5 trillion to the United States’ GDP over the next decade and create new pathways to prosperity for American workers.

“Over the next decade, a nonnegligible share of newly created jobs will be in job openings for wholly new occupations or for existing occupations undergoing significant transformations in terms of their job content and skills requirements.”

Because the created jobs will stem from entirely new occupations or as a result of large-scale changes of existing occupations, workers who aim to thrive in the coming employment environment will need to be open to reskilling and upskilling. That said, the changes the Fourth Industrial Revolution brings won’t require all workers to acquire high-level technological skills. Other, more human-centric skill sets in fields such as caregiving and leadership will be just as important as tech skills in the coming years. 

Job opportunities will expand in seven occupational arenas.

Analysis of five years of data provided by LinkedIn and Burning Glass Technologies reveals that, moving forward, job growth rates will likely be highest in seven specific fields:

1. Data and AI
2. Engineering and cloud computing
3. People and culture
4. Product development
5. Marketing, sales and content
6. The green economy
7. The care economy

Of these seven, data and AI, the green economy, and engineering and cloud computing will see the largest growth rate. That said, the care economy – which encompasses jobs like medical assistant, personal aide and fitness instructor – will offer the most overall employment opportunities by far, followed by data and AI and sales as well as marketing and content. Engineering and cloud computing – particularly jobs like DevOps engineer and full stack engineer – and people and culture roles will account for 12% and 8% of jobs, respectively. The green economy will likely offer the fewest professional opportunities between 2020 and 2022.

“The emerging professions of the future…will account for 6.1 million opportunities globally over the course of 2020–2022.”

Of all seven professional arenas, the green economy – which includes jobs such as solar energy installer, methane gas generation technician and green marketer – and the care economy are most sensitive to legislative changes and shifts in business practices. If, for instance, the government institutes new regulations or incentive programs that support the development and use of renewable energy, that would, in all likelihood, lead to dramatic growth in green economy jobs. Similarly, demographic changes could prompt greater demand in fields such as elder care, thus boosting the number of care economy roles available.

While some future growth professions lean heavily on technological expertise, others call for industry-specific business or specialized skills.

While most professions will increasingly call for some baseline technological skills – such as basic computer literacy – new technologies will complement rather than replace the human factor in many sectors of the economy. For example, marketing, sales and content jobs will require strong business know-how in addition to skills such as web design, online marketing, and knowledge of social media usage and telecommunications. Care economy jobs and green economy jobs, meanwhile, will generally call for more industry-specific expertise, such as medical transcription and solar installation knowledge rather than tech skills.

“While some professional clusters – such as data and AI, engineering and cloud computing – primarily require strong expertise in digital technologies, other high-growth professions place greater emphasis on business skills or specialized industry skills.”

In addition to the more specific skills required to do certain types of jobs, a number of general skills are needed in all the growth professions. General skills include leadership, communication, negotiation, creativity and problem solving – all more human-centric than tech-centric.