Mr Kühmayer, what does the professional career of the future look like?
times for specialists and the question of what changes a 15-year-old will have to prepare for in their future career.
Mr Kühmayer, what work is left for people to do and what is taken over by machines?
Asked the other way round: what work would you like to take away from a robot? Humans are social and creative beings. Machines will not possess these two qualities for a long time to come. Digitalisation is therefore bringing us closer to our humanity - that's good news!
Will the digital revolution - like the industrial revolution - create more jobs than it destroys?
The current wave of automation has one thing in common with previous ones: Occupations with a high proportion of routine and low qualifications will disappear. This applies not only to manual tasks or production work, but also to office jobs, i.e. knowledge work. What is new is that learning systems and artificial intelligence are also bringing about noticeable changes in professions that require a high level of qualification. One example: artificial intelligence can now recognise certain medical conditions better than doctors. So will we no longer need doctors in the future? Yes, absolutely! But their role and area of responsibility will change.
There is currently a shortage of skilled labour, both tradespeople and engineers. Will generalists who can combine different activities be in demand in the future?
I think successful people are like drawing pins: they have a broad footprint and go into relatively deep detail in one area. Conversely, specialists with an enormous amount of expertise but very little ability to connect with other people will have a hard time in the future. The pace of change is so rapid that we can only achieve good results by working together.
Competition is also getting tougher for well-trained people. Programmers from Ukraine and secretaries in India offer services at a high level and at prices that their Central European colleagues cannot compete with. To what extent does this development affect employees in Switzerland?
Of course there is competition. But if someone who, despite being many thousands of kilometres away, without contacts and local language skills, can compete with me for my job, that says something about me above all! One thing is clear: we cannot win global competition on the basis of costs, but only through higher quality services, smarter products and better qualifications. Globalisation is not pushing us out, but pushing us further up. This is good news for a high-wage country like Switzerland, which is known for top quality.
Today's 15-year-olds are entering the world of work in much the same way as their parents. What changes in the world of work can they expect in the course of their careers?
The organisation of the life course has changed -from a relatively stable view of a lifelong career to a portfolio of different professions that people take on in the course of a lifetime and correspondingly shorter periods of time spent in companies. And attitudes towards the value of work have changed: Material advancement has become less important than qualitative criteria, such as finding meaning in work. And, of course, the structure and organisation of work has changed: It is much more orientated towards innovation, much more project-oriented and much more dynamic.
The organisation of the life course has changed - from a relatively stable view of a lifelong career to a portfolio of different professions that people take on in the course of a lifetime and correspondingly shorter periods of time spent in companies. And attitudes towards the value of work have changed: Material advancement has become less important than qualitative criteria, such as finding meaning in work. And, of course, the structure and organisation of work has changed: It is much more orientated towards innovation, much more project-oriented and much more dynamic.
Picture: istock
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