2008-2018: How Will Jobs Change in the Future?

Friday, June 6, 2008 1:46 pm

HOW WILL JOBS CHANGE IN THE FUTURE?
 
Work in the 21st century will be very different from work in past centuries. Manual, physical labor will become scarcer in future, as it became scarcer in the 20th. The trend toward robotic mechanization, computerization, and technological advances will accelerate.
 
Cetron and Davies in The Futurist see the following trends in work...
 
  • Specialization continues to spread throughout industry and the professions.
  • Education and training will continue expanding throughout society.
  • Services are the fastest-growing sector of the global economy.
  • Women’s salaries are approaching equality with men’s but very slowly.
  • Labor unions are losing their power.
 
…and changes in the way work affects our lives:
 
  • The traditional age of retirement is losing its significance.
  • Second and third careers are becoming common.
  • Two income families are becoming the norm in most industrialized nations.
  • The work ethic is vanishing.
  • Generation X and the millennials will have major effects on the future.
  • Time is becoming the world’s most precious commodity.
 
Kentucky won’t be isolated from these trends. Like it or not, Kentuckians will have to adjust to these changes or ignore them – maybe at our peril.