The jobs are alright

Here is an eternal question that everyone has asked themselves at some point in their lives: What career should I go into? As a concerned parent, you increasingly ask not only what suits my child, but also which professions still have a future?

In the study The Future of Jobs, which was presented at this year's World Economic Forum, researchers analysed the future prospects of various professions up to 2024 based on the question of which jobs could be automated. First of all, here are the professions with no future prospects: all kinds of office jobs such as accounting, but also manufacturing, trades and, no joke, legal work. Journalism, by the way, was not even considered in the study. Such professions will be taken over by robots and algorithms in the coming years. The researchers predicted good prospects for four different fields. Firstly - a rather obvious realisation - «computational thinking», which can be translated somewhat abbreviated as data processing. Because the amount of information is increasing at the same rate as our confusion about it, programmers, analysts and market researchers are needed to create structure in the chaos.

Children could succeed in professions that require so-called soft skills.

The second area in which our children could succeed is in professions that require so-called soft skills. This refers to social and emotional intelligence, empathy, but also adaptability and intercultural skills. These are qualities that robots obviously struggle with, which is why activities such as selling, negotiating or counselling will still be carried out by humans in eight years' time. A small side observation: it is assumed that 40 per cent will be working freelance by 2020 - which in turn requires good soft skills. The third and fourth groups are the most surprising: care work and teaching. Carework - a gigantic area that ranges from geriatric care to medical assistance and physiotherapy to midwifery - has not yet been automated. Only people can look after people.

«It is assumed that 40 per cent will be working as freelancers in 2020»

The same applies to apprenticeships. Two of the previously least attractive, lowest paid and least recognised sectors of work are therefore predicted to have the highest growth rates. What do we conclude from the study? What do we tell our children? I think the following: 1. don't try to be happy. It's a well-trodden path that too many people have spent their lives wandering down. Make others happy instead. It's easier. And feels better. And has more future. 2. if you don't know what you want to be, become a teacher. Become a great, curious, enthusiastic teacher. We need them. And even if you don't become a teacher, be a teacher. Love what you have learnt and teach it to others.

To the author:

Mikael Krogerus is an author and journalist. The Finn is the father of a daughter and a son, lives in Biel and writes regularly for the Swiss parents' magazine Fritz+Fränzi and other Swiss media.