The labour force is polarising, with the high-skilled and low-skilled part of the spectrum continuing to offer employment, while mid-skill jobs are being increasingly displaced by new technologies. The highly skilled are non-replaceable - for the time being - because they deal in sectors and jobs that rely on problem definition and solving. Low-skilled jobs are those that involve a range of personal services and rely on a degree of manual labour. The situation faced by the latter has sparked debates about equity, especially as these employees face precarious employment prospects.
As in other countries, new entrants to the labour market face additional challenges because they have limited work-related networks or experience.
Research that we completed a while ago on these new entrants showed that in the first decade of their working life, many had churned through a surprisingly large number of jobs as they sought to get work that was appropriate to their qualifications.
The challenge is how to prepare for these transformational changes without becoming paralysed by the prospect of this Third Industrial Revolution. The first is to acknowledge that over a working life the options and opportunities are going to change - and it becomes critical to prepare for that change. As Economist noted, the nature of the "digital disruption" associated with this revolution means that skills that are specific to one sector will not be adequate. What's important now is to develop broad competencies that will help people transition through these changes.
These broad competencies relate to transferable skills, including problem-solving, good communication and digital literacy skills, and being able to work independently as well as part of a team.
It is certainly going to be important to be able to understand and manage complexity (think of the ways in which social networking technologies are now being used by firms). And growing cultural diversity means that being able to understand/interact/manage diverse employers, customers and clients is essential.
In the tertiary sector, our task is to help graduates gain these skill sets - and to understand that change is part of their future. Addressing these concerns is the motivation behind Massey's re-vamped bachelor of arts - a degree often wrongly tagged as the least job-oriented qualification. In fact, the BA offers the very skills and competencies needed to survive the 21st-century work environment in spades with a strengthened focus on citizenship, national and global.
It is important to recognise that careers with a standard employment contract (full-time, 9am to 5pm, certainty of employment) and a lifetime of working in a particular occupation and possibly for a single employer, are becoming rare. But what we also need to provide are things employers increasingly insist upon: work-related experience and networks. Neither has been part of what universities have traditionally provided.
The digital disruption of employment is a challenge. But it is also critical we ensure our education system provides the platform for our workers and citizens for that future - in the interests of individuals and the country as a whole.
-Professor Paul Spoonley is Pro-Vice-chancellor of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Massey University.
-Business and civic leaders, organisers and interest groups can contribute opinions. The views expressed here are the writer's personal opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz
