We are no strangers to the ever-changing job landscape. As happened in the past, new jobs start to appear as society and cultural norms change. But there’s more to it: jobs appear and disappear depending on globalisation, the skills asked for by employers and, most importantly, technological advancements.

In this article, we’ll dive into what makes the job landscape change, how tech creates jobs and makes them disappear, and what IT jobs are predicted to appear in the next years.

 

What makes the job landscape change?

 

The world we live in is never the same, year after year. As time goes by, society changes, technological inventions are launched, and global economic markets require different assets.

And, as changes happen, the job landscape shifts as well. Especially the IT job landscape, in which opportunities are created and functions are turned obsolete at a fast pace. But what factors make the job market shift in particular?

1. Culture and social norms: Society has different needs than it had a decade ago. As such, high school and college degrees change their courses to provide new skills to the young workforce pipeline.

2. Demography: Especially in developed countries, the workforce is aging, and the retirement age is getting delayed. This has a huge effect on the way younger people choose careers and their work methodology to achieve a higher work-life balance.

3. Economy: The broader economic environment has an impact on what kind of job careers people are searching for to have a better life quality.

4. Globalisation: The global economy is connected as never before and that makes it easier for people to apply and get a job in another country without leaving theirs. Companies also look for talent abroad since they have more opportunities to find the right person for a vacancy.

5. Technology: Companies leverage technological advancements to optimize their operations. Therefore, people need to have a skill set that contemplates emerging tech in some way. Moreover, as tech invades companies, the production process gets automatized. This means that some functions cease to exist in the market, as others rise with technology needs.

 

Examples of technological advancements that are changing the job landscape

 

Having tech skills is more important than ever. Especially because the tech world is an ever-changing environment, most jobs involve tech applications in some way. Even if a person doesn’t work directly in IT the sector, they end up having to do some sort of tech task.

Technological advancements, because they optimize and automate tasks, render functions obsolete, as they create other kinds of job titles. Here are some examples of emerging technologies that are changing the job landscape:

• Automation: With the rise of Industry 4.0, algorithms and machines are doing the tasks people used to do manually. If these robotics make some industry jobs more vulnerable, they still require maintenance and people who can program and set up automated functions.
• Big Data: This emerging technology has high value for companies since they have become data-driven. With Big Data job opportunities in business intelligence and data science are on the rise.
• Artificial Intelligence: AI is one of the emerging technologies that have boosted new job functions. AI is the reason automation became easier to set up and program, as well as to collect and analyse data. In this sense, artificial intelligence has been optimizing processes across sectors and making companies produce their products faster and with higher quality.
• Cloud Computing: Businesses are also benefiting from Cloud Computing for several reasons, and one of them is to have access to data faster. To maintain the cloud working, cloud engineers are needed and that is part of why Cloud Computing is changing today’s job landscape.

 

IT Jobs that don’t yet exist, but will shortly

 

With emerging technologies come emerging job functions. These are the ones predicted to appear any day now:

• Prompt Engineer: The person who creates instructions for Artificial Intelligence to gather data, learn from it and deliver a proper outcome.
• AI Ethicist: This function makes sure the AI systems are used according to international norms and that ethical issues are being taken into consideration whenever a system is developed.
• AI Personality Designer: To make the AI chats and platforms more engaging and relatable to the people using them, Designers will probably have a new kind of function: to design AI personalities.
• Virtual Reality Experience Designer: Virtual Reality (VR) is becoming a great asset regarding entertainment. That is why 3D designers and VR environment designers are jobs on the rise. However, a VR Experience designer will be responsible for integrating everything in an immersive experience.
• Biotech Analyst: To develop treatments, people Biotech Specialists will be called to analyse data collected by AI, for instance.
• Quantum Computing Specialist: People performing tasks regarding Quantum Computing might be developing and doing the maintenance of these systems.
• Cybersecurity responders: For incidents related to cybersecurity, this emerging job will be most needed to respond as fast as possible.

 

Conclusion

 

As people and organizations have different needs, due to globalisation, demographics, and even social and cultural norms, the job landscape changes to mitigate them. And these trends came to stay, especially with the IT innovations launched to the market so regularly as they do.

The tech context in which we live is influencing the types of jobs that not only people are searching for, but companies need to suppress a necessity. Besides the need for AI, machine learning, and cloud computing engineers, several job positions are predicted to pop up in the future.