Editorial: Teens require broad skillset

General manager Janet Faulding (right) says the pressure on young people to choose a career path at 18 must stop. Photo / Norrie Montgomery

Thousands of Bay students are about to start their end-of-year exams.

Some will have been swotting for weeks to prepare, others may have delayed their studies and now face the realisation they may not be as prepared as they should be.

It's a stressful time of year for students whose future career aspirations may hinge on the grades they achieve.

It can be especially daunting for a young person who has not yet chosen a career path.

However, while selecting a career early in life might be viewed as the ideal, a new study has found that the majority of Kiwis end up working in different jobs from the one they set their sights on at school.

The finding, from a survey of 4000 people, has prompted online job placement firm Seek, which commissioned the research, to urge parents to be open-minded in helping their teens to prepare to swim in an increasingly fluid job market.

General manager Janet Faulding says the pressure on young people to choose a career path at 18 must stop.

"Kiwis, particularly parents, need to wrap their head around the concept that having many jobs and careers is not a sign of their child's inability to settle down or make up their mind," she says.

Massey University Professor Richard Shaw shares her view.

He says the survey endorses the value of a general education, to which specialist skills can be added later, and points to the fact that we live in a fast-changing world.

The Institute of Economic Research has predicted about half of all jobs are at risk of technological replacement in coming decades.

The odds, it seems, are pretty high that many workers will face a career change in the future. Already, almost 80 per cent of women and about 68 per cent of men have mid-stream career changes.

Given the findings of the report, it seems we should be encouraging young people to try different roles and to develop a range of skills rather than selecting a specific path early in life - chances are they could find their dream job along the way.