“The Law of Supply and Demand is one of the most basic principles of Economics. In simplest terms, the law of supply and demand states that when an item is scarce, but many people want it, the price of that item will rise. Conversely, if there is a larger supply of an item than consumer demand warrants, the price will fall.” (Investopedia Definition)
You may wonder, what this fundamental principle has to do with your job and your career right now and why the topic of economics is the opening line of this blog?
Well, let me morph this definition into a more applicable explanation relating to jobs and employment by changing a few words: “The law of supply and demand is one of the most basic principles in job security measures. In simplest terms, the law of supply and demand states that when a candidate skill is scarce, but many companies want it, the salary of a candidate with that skill will rise. Conversely, if there is a larger supply of candidate skills than organisational demand warrants, the remuneration of candidates with that skill will fall.”
“Fair enough, as a candidate the more in demand my skills set, the higher my salary. This is common knowledge.”
Now, taking this definition to the next level: “The law of supply and demand is one of the most basic principles in job sustainability measures. In simplest terms, the law of supply and demand states that when a candidate skill cannot be automated or replaced by Artificial Intelligence, but many organisations still need it, the demand for a candidate with that skill will continue. Conversely, if the supplied candidate skill can be replaced by automation or Artificial Intelligence and organisational demand for the actual human skill declines, the job opportunities for candidates with that skill will disappear.”
Do I have your attention now?
Three Job Outcomes by 2025
We cannot adequately predict the future of job sustainability, but there is a high probability that the job you have now, could fall into one of only three distinct categories by the next decade:
1. Redundant
According to a report published by the World Economic Forum in 2016, the prediction was made that by 2025, over 7.1 million jobs in fifteen major developed and emerging economies will be lost. These economies account for more than 65% of the global workforce which is presented by the following countries: Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States, plus the ASEAN and GCC groups.
The most significant losses due to automation and disintermediation are forecasted to originate from the ‘’white collar” office and administrative industries of Healthcare, Financial Services and Energy and Investment sectors. (Oliver Cann, World Economic Forum Report)
2. Transformed
The invasion of the gig economy continuous to disrupt traditional workplace environments, as well as the nature of previously deemed in office positions, where information technology innovation and infrastructure development is increasing remote and virtual employment possibilities exponentially.
The Mckinsey Global Institute Report issued in November 2017, highlighted automation and robotics to be the most significant drivers responsible for changing the nature of work in functionalities such as: machine operation, fast food preparation, mortgage origination, paralegal, accounting and back-office transaction processing. Important to note the demand for these functionalities is not expected to decline, but employees would be expected to perform new and additional tasks in these areas to remain competitive in the marketplace.
Image Source: Emil Akan, Epoch Times Article
3. Important
Big Data analysis was a foreign concept in the industry a mere decade ago. App developers, Social media managers, Uber drivers and Drone operators did not even exist in the first few years following the turn of the 21st Century. (Vikram Khanna, Straits Times, Article)
In an article by IoT Evangelist, Tom Raferty from SAP, he mentions a grandeur shift from ‘’muscle powered jobs” to “caring profession”, also highlighting the parallel relationship between increased wealth percentages and job increases in the professional services sector.
If your job functionality falls into the first category, there is a need for concern, but don’t jump off a bridge yet. Act now to diversify your skills sets, switch jobs to a more sustainable industry or focus on retraining and learning new skills by utilising the legion of free courses and training programmes available in the public domain.
Is your current position part of the second category? Thankfully, you still have a little bit of breathing space perhaps if only for the next three years, but your focus should already be on upskilling and acquiring additional competencies related to your current job functionality.
Listed under number three? You are not out of the woods either. Striving for excellence on a continuous basis to stay in demand and continually reinventing your expertise to be better than anyone else should be part of your medium-term career strategy, as the competition will get even tougher in years to come.
The Skills Matrix for 2030 – Will you be “on the list” or “in demand”?
While we can probably predict that anyone without a basic understanding of at least one of the STEM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), will find a real challenge in securing a job in the near future, STEM is no longer a fail-safe mechanism to ensure job sustainability.
If you were expecting a Top 50 most wanted job skills list in this section, think again. ? (Google will render a search result of 73 900 records for just the past 12 months regarding this topic in under half a second.)
There is much more to this “in demand” job economics phenomenon than titles, duties and money.
Work in Future
Understanding the future nature of employment firstly, influenced by work democratisation and technological empowerment and how this will impact companies is essential, before devising your strategy for job sustainability.
The Global Consortium to Reimagine HR, Employment Alternatives, Talent, and the Enterprise (CHREATE), classifies organisations of the future, into four quadrants each with a unique approach to strategy, talent and work as depicted by the image below.
Image Source: John Boudreau, Harvard Business Review
STEAM Ahead
“While the core need for technical skills remains strong, another theme has entered the job market: the need for people with skills in communication, interpretation, design, and synthetic thinking. In a way, we can think of these as the arts, hence the evolution of education from STEM to STEAM. The jobs of the future, driven by the increasing use of technology, taking over rote tasks, will require social skills complementing the more technical abilities.” (Deloitte Insights, Report)
The need for social astuteness in previously deemed technical or back-office positions is becoming increasingly more important in this digital era.
Going Hybrid
The trend towards the blending of traditionally unrelated competencies pertaining to job requirements has been clearly visible in recent years. Engineers must get involved in sales and business development, actuaries are required to engage in marketing activities, and brand specialists are expected to navigate themselves around complex statistical revenue models and customer demographical data sets.
SMAC or get smacked out of a job
SMAC is the combined term used to describe the four main technology concepts currently driving corporate innovation: Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud. Regardless of age and your generation group, increasing your knowledge and integrating these technology pillars into your expertise suite, will provide for lucrative future employment prospects.
Future Job Survival
No one knows what the future holds. Yes, expert predictions can be made, and forecasts published about the next five, ten or fifty years regarding the global employment outlook and job security or sustainability prospects, but nothing is carved in stone apart from changes being the only constant variable.
Trying to outsmart artificial Intelligence, outplay the robots and outlast the machines, will not necessarily be a possibility for securing job sustainability the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Understanding the future employment landscape, shifting traditional job expectations, adapting proactively to changes and embracing innovation and learning, will be the critical drivers required to remain part of the job economics demand equation.
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