During the week, I’m enmeshed in writing about IoT- and IIoT-enabled solutions. For nearly every application, I ponder, “How will this generate more jobs?”
The usual answer is it won’t.
Several weeks ago, however, I arrived at the conclusion you don’t need to be a technical whiz or brilliant data scientist to remain gainfully employed. Increasingly, the solutions being brought to market are highly intuitive. The difficult stuff – capturing, crunching, applying analytics, and deriving business intelligence from seas of data – is being done by cadres of solution providers, software developers, and Fortune 500s hoping to beat the competition by rapidly gaining market share.
A manufacturing manager, therefore, can continue focusing on what they do best, keeping assembly lines running. Meanwhile, a solution integrator can add sensors to their manufacturing machines and processes, and then use a packaged solution to integrate sensor and SCADA data, create rules, apply artificial intelligence, develop dashboards, and much more. Once implemented, the manufacturing manager has a wealth of business intelligence to increase their efficiency, predict equipment issues, and optimize production output.
Voila!
Yes, robots and automation are replacing traditionally repetitive roles in production, warehousing, and shipping. There’s a bit of an upside, however. Most robots are being used in repetitive, often dangerous and dirty roles like welding, assembly, and material handling. The largest number of robots per manufacturing employees are in Asian countries, such as South Korea, Singapore, Japan, and Taiwan, with significantly fewer in Germany, Sweden, and the U.S.
Simultaneously, the population growth[1] of these countries is falling, resulting in fewer workers. Presently, the population growth of South Korea is .4%, Singapore is just .1%, and Japan is -.2%. This trend is present in most developed nations with Germany, France, and Belgium at just .4% growth. The United States has a more respectable rate of .7%, a 1% drop from 1960.
More automated systems and robots coupled with fewer workers will most likely result in safer work environments with higher value jobs allocated to humans. It’s also conceivable the decline in the manufacture of traditional cars, trucks and railcars, appliances, and textiles will be replaced by the growth of factories to produce new types of goods from prefab and modular homes to green building materials, solar panels, wind turbines, automation systems, nanomaterials, 3D printing, robotics, diagnostic and medical equipment, and of course, electric vehicles.
Okay, I’ve greatly simplified the tsunami of Industry 4.0. The fact of the matter is the simpler a solution is to integrate, the more likely it’ll be adopted. That means, workers need to become more technically savvy about implementing and using off-the-shelf solutions, but not necessarily become technical savants.
Hawk Got Me Thinking
Last week, I attended a lecture on raptors. It’s a relevant topic with a wealth of falcons, eagles, and other birds of prey perpetually hovering over Whidbey Island where I live. The speaker, a raptor expert, had his Ferruginous hawk, a 3-pound killing machine with the ability to pick-up and whisk away for dinner prairie dogs, birds, ground squirrels, rabbits, and other unlucky critters.
Following the lecture, I was hoping to become more compassionate towards raptors, but my aversion for the killers of quail, rabbits, doves, and small birds in my yard deepened. Nevertheless, it spurred me to do some research.
Because raptors are instinctively feared by smaller birds, there are falconers – licensed owners of trained birds of prey – who are hired by farmers to chase small birds out of their fields. The strategy is highly effective and an eco-friendly way to scare away destructive birds like robins and crows who like to feast on small, delicate crops like grapes, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries.
Trained raptors are also used to drive away birds from airports, landfills, beaches, schools, and golf courses, where it would be disruptive to use air cannons and other noise deterrents. Instinctively small birds are afraid of hawks and falcons, and just seeing the silhouette of one will incite them to fly away.
The burgeoning profession of using falcons for bird control fits into what I called “back-to-basic” jobs, which are going to become more common.
In the same vein, technology will generate jobs that weren’t conceivable just a few years ago. The same farmer who hired a falconer might also consider using drones to survey his crops, analyze the soil, spray fertilizer, monitor crop health, and even plant by using drones to shoot pods infused with seeds and plant nutrients.
The use of drones opens new opportunities, which complement the sophisticated sensors and cloud-based software solutions being introduced to monitor, analyze, and provide actionable insights on crops.
Close-to-the-Customer
There’s another category of jobs that has the potential to remain the same or grow, and that is “close-to-the-customer.” Just as “close-to-the-box” services are routine diagnostic, troubleshooting, and repair services that support hardware, “close-to-the-customer” are the services that support everyday living. Their purveyors are the magicians, behind the scenes, who construct, repair, protect, and beautify.
Some of the close-to-the-customer occupations with the most job growth according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics[2] include pipe layers, plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters (15.8% growth), security and fire alarm systems installers (14.4%), tree trimmers and pruners (11.7%), landscaping and grounds keeping workers (11.3%), construction and extraction occupations (11%), roofers (11%), carpet, floor, and tile installers and finishers (9.6%), building and grounds cleaning and maintenance (9.3%), electricians (8.9%), and carpenters (8.2%).
Most of these occupations present the opportunity to be self-employed, providing work/life balance, flexibility, and ability to increase income with limited overhead, and word-of-mouth recommendations from happy customers.
Requiring more education, but also close-to-the-customer with optimistic job growth include physician assistants (37.3%), medical and health services managers (20.5%), community health workers (18.1%), social and human services assistants (16.4%), counselors (17%), social workers (16.1%), health educators (14.5%), and psychologists (13.8%).
With people starting families, and children being the end-product, the teaching profession also presents opportunities that are close-to-the-customer. The most growth will be for post-secondary teachers (12.7%), followed by preschool and kindergarten teachers (9.8%), secondary school teachers (7.5%), and elementary and middle school teachers (7.4%).
And finally, personal finance advisors (14.9%), credit counselors and loan officers (11.6%), and tax preparers (10.8%) will have strong demand along with anything associated with medical care from personal care aides to the breadth of nurses, doctors and administrators.
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