One of the scarier predictions for someone in a life-long career could easily be Tom Peters suggesting that 90% of white collar jobs wont exist in 2010. Here are Six jobs that Wont exist in 2016:
1) Gatekeepers
2) Bloggers
3) Amateur Ad Makers
4) Car Mechanics
5) US high-tech jobs
6) Indian call-center operators
6 Jobs that wont exist in 10 years time
I disagree almost entirely with this little piece from Fast Company. I don’t think they’ve got this one right at all….
1. By “Gatekeepers”, they mean “TV schedulers, Wall Street researchers, cool hunters”. Huh? What gates are these people keeping, and who is “in” and “out” of this category? I think I see their pattern – no TV schedulers, because everything will be on demand. No Wall Street analysts because we’ll get our data live, online. No cool hunters, because it will all be online. OK, maybe. But who will be putting this stuff online? So, the new gatekeepers become the webmasters and their masters…
2. By saying there will no work for bloggers, they’re simply pointing out that no-one gets paid to blog now – no-one will in 10 years time either. They’re not saying there won’t be blogs. It just won’t be a career option. I disagree. There probably won’t be blogs as we know them, but CGM (customer generated media) is not going away anytime soon, and I think most corporates will have pulled this into their PR and comms functions. So, in essence, there will be a job for a good blog patroller.
3. Actually, they think that amateur ad makers WILL be in business. “Talented amateurs making ads for fun and posting them online seem to be better at your job than you [the creative ad agency types] are.” So, Nuf Sed’s mistake on this one. But, I think they’re wrong. I think that the real talent in advertising will once again have risen to the top, and like a blooming Phoenix will be standing atop the detritus of the current ad industry, once again aglow in the full flame of its glory (you see, there will always be money to give to people with a way with words… and with music, multimedia, images, video, etc).
4. “As cars run on software, the grease monkey will need a makeover.” They’re a bit behind the times here, are Fast Company. My last 3 cars have all run on software – the current two in our family do. The grease monkies have been overhauled already. Downside – its difficult to take my car to anyone other than an “authorised dealer”. The upside – the authorised dealers throw in 5 years free car maintenance as a sweetener when buying the car. And, lets not forget, that you can’t outsource a whole lot of things to India – you can’t offshore a haircut, and you can’t offshore car maintenance either.
5. I agree, unless the high-tech jobs involve one of the following: (1) being creative (rather than just being automatons in an algorithm driven information age factory), (2) being creative, or (3) being creative.
6. Indian call-center operators: “American customer service is rescued from oxymoron status as companies realize that being nice to the people with the money is the only way to win.” Not sure what this means. BUT, I agree and disagree. I agree that the call centres of the world will not be sitting in India, but I don’t think they’ll have migrated back to the US either. I think many of them will be in Cape Town – it has a better time zone, better English accent, and better technology. The pricing advantage of India is already well its on way to being equalised (i.e. Indians are charging more for their services). So, yes, India, kiss your current advantage good bye. But call centres will stay offshored.
So, maybe this article was just a bit of fun. But it was wrong.