With full attention to OpenAI’s ChatGPT (the chatbot of the AI which has gained great fame among the public for its detailed and human responses to different queries) the debate over whether robots will replace skilled jobs is reignited.
Who knows what impact the chatbot. But a new report from the Burning Glass Institute conducted in partnership with the Business-Higher Education Forum and Wiley shows that AI and machine learning skills are not only among the most dynamic and pervasive skills in market industries. work, rather, having these skills can mean workers are paid more, rather than less, for their jobs.
“We need to rethink the idea that ‘automation’ is a looming threat,” says Matt Sigelman, president of the nonprofit labor market research organization Burning Glass Institute. “We’re seeing people whose job it is to leverage ‘automation’ skills get paid a lot more than those who don’t.”
Yet he acknowledges that skills are changing rapidly in the average profession, and those who do not follow skills development risk stagnating in the labor market. “Sometimes unemployment has less to do with jobs disappearing and more to do with jobs that require entirely new skills that today’s workers haven’t yet mastered.”
So what skills should job seekers focus on? The Institute’s research, released Dec. 1, offers some insights. It analyzed data from 228 million job postings over the past seven years, grouping around 30,000 skills, from welding to data engineering, into 444 skill “clusters”. such as lean manufacturing or data analysis.
From this analysis, four clusters of skills emerged. not just faster growth (those with the highest growth rate since 2018) but also more widespread (those that appear in the widest range of industries). Due to their growth rate and scope, these four skill sets: 1) artificial intelligence and machine learning; 2) cloud computing; 3) product management and 4) social media they are the ones that disrupt the labor market and provide the greatest opportunities for workers, says Sigelman.
“These are the skill sets that are most likely to be incorporated into the job you’re currently doing,” he says. In 2021, one in eight job postings required one of four skill sets, according to the report.
Sigelman, member of the inaugural list of: The people shaping the future of work of FORBES, also spoke on November 15 at the Future of Work Summit of FORBES on the Institute’s research.
“The talent shortage is here to stay,” Sigelman said in November. “What we’re really seeing is… an imbalance of people with specific skill sets that the market needs”. His research shows that the average profession has seen 37% of their skills replaced in the last five years “due to automation, technology and also the diffusion of skills in the marketplace”.
The detailed report also revealed that people developing all four skill sets outnumber American jobs globally when it comes to compensation and often by a wide margin.
Also, name abilities that are “overwhelmed” or show relatively slow or negative growth. These include business consulting, specialist sales, database architecture and administration, and website design and development. Professions in decline include database administrators, personal financial advisers and auditors, the report said.
For individual job seekers, Sigelman advises workers to think more about the skills you are developing rather than about specific companies or jobs. “What puts you in control of your career is often as much about developing the right skills as choosing the right job,” he says.
By finding skills that grow quickly and spread across industries, he says, people can find opportunities in areas where needs are emerging but where there are still severe skills shortages. The marketinghe says, is an example: a field in which there are many creative professionals who are good communicators, but who are not experienced enough with new technical knowledge on topics such as automation or data analysis. “Inherently, when you see these types of intersections in the market, there will be a shortage.”