FORMER US Secretary of Education Richard Riley famously mused in 2004 that “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t even exist yet.”
While it may be enticing to imagine the new jobs that will be invented in the coming years, I think it is equally telling to predict the jobs that won’t exist in the near future.
After all, scores of once-essential roles have fallen by the wayside in recent decades. An entire festival recently held in regional Victoria called the Lost Trades Fair was dedicated to commemorating forgotten skills like coopering, leadlighting and hedgelaying.
In this era of eye-waveringly rapid change, I have to wonder which other professions we may be remembering with nostalgia in the years to come. Which ‘faces’ may go the way of the milkman and disappear from our daily lives entirely over the next five to 10 years?
THE TAXI DRIVER
There are few of us who have ever enjoyed catching a taxi. The experience is rarely pleasant (or sanitary) and yet we have never really had a choice. Until now, that is.
The emergence of car sharing apps like Uber and Lyft are quickly putting an end to the taxi industry’s cartel-like control over personal transportation. With the click of a button, Uber users can arrange to be picked up by a private driver in a clean and modern car — all the while paying only a fraction more than they would for a cab. Better still, prices are standardised and payment is arranged electronically meaning no cash ever changes hands.
Testament to just how threatened cab companies are by this disruption to the status quo, a number of US states have taken steps to ban Uber-like services and private drivers in Paris are reporting acts of vandalism and violence by the taxi industry.
THE NEWSAGENT
Today, newsagents have one remaining cash cow — lotteries. With increasing noise from governments that lotto could also be deregulated in the coming few years just as it has in other countries, this may be the last nail in the coffin.
It is entirely likely that the only newsagents still standing in five years time will be those who have diversified to the point where their business model is almost unrecognisable by today’s standards.
PARKING INSPECTORS
While they have been rumoured for years now, driverless cars are a closer reality than ever before. Volvo looks like they’ll be first to the party with the Swedish carmaker on the verge of releasing their first range of autonomous cars. Recognising that this is just the tip of the iceberg, legislators in the US states of California and Nevada have been forced to pass legislation to permit the use of driverless cars on public roads.
Once driverless cars become mainstream, there is little doubt that much of how our cities and urban centres operate will change. Among other things, we will no longer need to park our cars while we work or play. Instead, our cars will drop us off and return to pick us up when required. Parking police will thus become a redundant function in society.
While this may seem an outrageous or ridiculous notion, it really isn’t as Jules Verne-like as many of us imagine.
TAILORS
Another age-old profession that looks on the verge of obsolescence is that of tailoring.
A recent partnership between two Australian businesses will allow customers to have their measurements taken by walk-in 3D body scanners. This new technology created by Sydney business mPort is rolling out in shopping centres around the country as you read this article.
Here’s how it works. Once a customer’s dimensions are mapped out digitally, all they need to do is choose the fabric, cut and colour using tailoring company InStitchU’s online system and one month later a custom-made suit will arrive fresh from China.
While some older customers may flinch at the lack of personal touch, this new innovation will likely spell doom for the raft of local tailors across the country.
MORTGAGE ADVISERS
Before we knew it, we were dialled in via Skype to a mortgage adviser in another city who ran through our options and generated a pre-approval on the spot.
As a branch staff person stepped in to wrap up the meeting, she smiled and said ‘these things will probably put us all out of a job.’ I left the bank that day reflecting on how right she was.
With faster broadband speeds just around the corner, so many of the transactional ‘service’ providers we have become accustomed to dealing with in person will simply no longer be required. Mortgage advisers are far from the first and will certainly not be the last profession to fall victim to this trend.
According to nearshore jobs, while predicting the future is fraught with danger, there is certainly no doubt that the career paths of children being born today will look very different to those of us who have gone before them.
Many new jobs and industries will be created — but countless others will inevitably fall by the wayside. So take a long hard look at the next tailor, taxi driver, newsagent, mortgage adviser or parking inspector you come across — their face is one you may not see for much longer.
Michael McQueen is a business strategist and four-time bestselling author. His most recent book is Winning the Battle for Relevance.
Source: News Ltd