The future has happened already. The pandemic has accelerated existing trends—compressing time. We’ve all experienced Covid-19 time, the feeling of one day blurring into another. Without realizing it, about 10 years went by—or so it seems.
If you are searching for a new job or want to advance your career, this is a fantastic—but not perfect—time to start. It feels like we are nearing the light at the end of the pandemic. Companies are ditching the mask mandates. States that seemed would stay closed forever have opened up. Investment bankers are flying out to generate business. Airbnb is seeing a rebound in customers wanting to stay at their roster of cool homes in interesting places around the world. Airlines are flying again. With this increase in activity, new and more jobs are being created.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has compiled a list of the top 10 jobs of the future. While this isn’t the bible of jobs, it's a starting point, showcasing how some emerging jobs have blossomed from the carnage of Covid-19. The WEF is an organization that “engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” It's a collection of wealthy elites, political leaders, business tycoons, corporate CEOs and other posh professionals that love telling people what to do. This comment isn’t intended to be derisive; it's meant to be helpful when you read the titles, as they seem a little highfalutin.
1. Work-from-home facilitator—a.k.a. director of remote work
During the virus outbreak, corporate executives needed to figure out how to manage tens of thousands of employees working from home. Pre-pandemic, only a small percentage of people worked from home. Now, it's a commonly accepted practice.
To ensure the quality of work, tech companies, including GitLab, Facebook, Twitter and Quora, have created a new role dedicated to remote-work issues. As companies pivoted to a flexible hybrid work model, in which some people will be in the office two or three days a week and a large percentage of staff want to work remotely, there will be a big need for cat herders. A dedicated remote-work officer will be tasked with keeping the remote workers on the same page with in-office personnel, so that a two-tier class system doesn’t develop. One of the tasks of the remote-work director will be to provide all of the necessary technology, software, computers, communication tools, furniture and fixtures to make sure that the folks working from home have a good experience.
2. Fitness-commitment counselor
According to the WEF, “We cringe at the extra kilos, pounds and stones packed on during months of pandemic-induced lockdown. To remedy the situation, predictive and preventative approaches to counseling, paired with digital wearables, like Apple Watches and FitBit dashboards, couple human accountability to maintaining fitness.” In America, this doesn’t feel right. It seems a little too invasive. Can you visualize a human resources professional goading a worker to lose weight and go for a jog?
I’d humbly like to offer a substitution: we need more mental health professionals on staff. Cases of work-related burnout, depression, anxiety, stress and isolation reached record levels. Companies may blanche of hiring an internal mental health counselor, but you can envision offering this service through insurance providers. Mental health and substance abuse counselors will have a lot of business. Even though we are powering through the pandemic, there will still be scars that need addressing and healing.
3. Smart-home design manager
Our houses and apartments are tech-enabled, making tasks easier. Devices, like Google Nest. identify friends or strangers at the door. Samsung's Family Hub refrigerator photographs what's left in the fridge and makes suggestions based on our diets. Amazon's Alexa offers all of the information we need by simply asking her.
An industry alliance, sponsored by Apple, Google, Amazon and other tech companies, will begin certifying smart home devices later this year using a network technology called Matter, a potentially important step toward making the new technology more widely accepted. The new Matter logo on products and packaging will signify that smart devices, such as light bulbs you turn on with Amazon Alexa or a video doorbell you monitor with Google Home, will get along well together.
4. XR-immersion counselor
There has been a surge in digital and tech-based activities over the outbreak. Extended reality (XR), which is inclusive of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR), has seen an increase in usage by consumers and become progressively more popular with brands looking to innovate and reach curious audiences.
The uptick in usage of mobile, and everyone being online more, has led to an increase in consumers trying out XR across verticals, including “playing video games, consuming entertainment, participating in social VR, using AR features on social networks and experimenting with virtual try-ons, virtual shopping and 360-degree travel videos.”
XR immersion counselors will work with technical artists and software engineering, training and workforce collaboration leads to massively scale the rollout of best-in-class AR and VR.
5. Workplace environment architect
Everything from health screenings to “elevator commutes” in post-pandemic office architecture is about to go through a major rethink. The importance of employee well-being and how human-centered design of a company’s real estate holdings can impact it are now crucial to the future of work.
Issues, such as requiring employees to return to the office, get vaccinated, wear masks, the number of people in the office at one time, ensuring appropriate distancing and remote work options will need to be figured out.
6. Algorithm-bias auditor
“All online, all the time” lifestyles for work and leisure accelerated the competitive advantage derived from algorithms by digital firms everywhere. But from Brussels to Washington, given the increasing statutory scrutiny on data, it’s a near certainty that when it comes to how they’re built, verification through audits will help ensure the future workforce is also the fair workforce.
Here’s an example: Joy Buolamwini, a Ghanaian-U.S. computer scientist, noticed a robot playing a game of peek-a-boo with her was problematic. The artificial intelligence couldn’t see “her dark-skinned face.” Buolamwini also found that “three commercially available facial-recognition technologies made by Microsoft, IBM and Megvii misidentified darker female faces nearly 35% of the time, while they worked almost perfectly (99%) on white men.”
7. Data detective
Openings for data scientists remain the fastest growing job in the tech-heavy “algorithms, automation and AI” family of the CJoF Index since its inception, and continued to see 42% growth in Q1 ’21. Given this high demand, they’re also scarce; that’s where data detectives help bridge the gap to get companies to investigate the mysteries in big data.
8. Cyber-calamity forecaster
Aside from Covid-19, it’s arguable that the other big catastrophe of 2020 was the continued onslaught of both massive state-sponsored cyberattacks, like Solar Winds, down to individual bad actors promulgating ransomware exploits. The ability to forecast events like these is critical. The CJoF Index bears this out: growth in openings for cyber calamity forecasters grew 28% in Q1 ’21).
9. Tidewater architect
The global challenge of climate change and sea level rise will remain an omnipresent challenge. Tidewater architects will work with nature—not against it—in some of the biggest civil engineering projects of the 21st century. And per the CJoF Index, openings for these jobs grew 37% in Q1 ’21.
10. Human-machine teaming manager
Pandemic or not, the unceasing rise of robots in the workplace continues unabated. Human-Machine Teaming Managers will operate at the intersection of people and robots and create seamless collaborations. Already, openings for forerunner roles like robotics technicians grew 50%.
The WEF and the media tend to focus on cool, sexy jobs. Most are held by well-paid, white-collar professionals. There are other roles that will see growth, based on trends, especially pertaining to our health and safety. It's reasonable to foresee an increase in the need for home healthcare aids, nurses, health and medical professionals.
Also, with remote-work options commonplace, people have moved from big cities to suburbs and rural locations. As new houses are built and homes upgraded to accommodate working from home, tradespeople, such as electricians and plumbers, will be in high demand.
President Joe Biden’s multitrillion-dollar stimulus program allocates large sums of money toward green energy. There will be a need for people who have experience with solar panel installations and jobs for wind generation technicians.
During the outbreak, families adopted pets. You’ve probably seen more people walking their dogs and empty boxes from Chewy left by the trash pick-up bins. It's likely that there will be an increase in the need for veterinarians to take care of the cute little puppies and kittens.
10 Hot, Fast-Growing Jobs For The Future Post-Pandemic World - Forbes
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