Young Aussies Train for Dying Jobs – Report

Seventy per cent of young Australian’s are entering the workforce in jobs that won’t exist in a decade, a report from The Foundation for Young Australian’s revealed.

Automation will eliminate the need for entire categories of employment, with smarter machines increasingly taking over human tasks.

However the report, The New Work Order: Ensuring young Australians have skills and experience for jobs of the future, not the past, found Australia is not prepared to weather the changing job market.

“Nearly 60 per cent of Australian students, 71 per cent in VET, are currently studying or training for occupations where at least two thirds of jobs will be automated over the coming decades. Many of the jobs they are studying could vanish in 10 to 15 years’ time,” FYA CEO, Jan Owen said.

“Many of the changes could be great for our nation, but they could also be devastating – for young people in particular – if we don’t take the right actions to prepare for this vastly different world.”

Owens said young people need to be provided with a different skill-set that focuses on digital literacy.

“Our report found more than 90 per cent of Australia’s current workforce will need digital skills to communicate and find information in order to perform their roles in the next two to five years. At least 50 per cent will need advanced skills to configure and build systems,” she said.

“The next generation needs to not only know how to operate technology, but how to create and manipulate it as well. Our children may be able to operate a smart-phone with ease, but what they need is to learn how to build it.”

Globalisation, which has seen Australia lose “hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs of competing locations around the world”, is also posing a new threat to job security.

“New technology platforms are making it possible for foreign workers to do jobs in Australia from remote locations including legal, IT, design, architecture and businesses services,” the report said.

“Up to 11 per cent of service sector jobs may be at risk from being lost to workers undertaking jobs in Australia from foreign companies.”

However, Owens said is Australia acts fast, globalisation could provide job opportunities instead.

“Technology and globalisation are making it easier and cheaper for people to start their own business, and new technologies and ways of working are making how and where people work more flexible. If we are to make this work in our favour, we need to position our young people for success,” she said.

“Unfortunately, our national curriculum is stuck in the past – with the current recommendation that teaching in digital skills not commence until Year 9. This is despite the international evidence that says we must go early.

“If we don’t start early equip our young people to be digitally-literate, financially-savvy, innovative, adaptable workers they will not be able to keep up in the global market-place, and the gap between high-income earners and low-income earners will get even wider for the next generation.”

Read the full report HERE