A surge in the "jobs of the future"
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The last quarter of 2019 saw a big jump in demand for a bundle of jobs that could dominate the future, per an index tracked by the IT services firm Cognizant.
Why it matters: "The notion that there's gonna be a jobs apocalypse has been with us for the last decade, but the data shows that's not coming to pass," says Rob Brown, VP of Cognizant's Center for the Future of Work.
The backdrop: For over a year, Cognizant has been tracking U.S. hiring for 50 jobs that it deems forward-looking, with statistics going back to 2016 pulled from the Bureau of Labor Statistics via Burning Glass, a jobs database.
- Cognizant's Jobs of the Future Index includes jobs in AI, transportation, health care, human resources and more.
- That demand for these jobs of the future is growing faster than demand for all jobs is a bright spot in the ongoing discussion about how tech will upend the future of work. Yes, automation and AI will disrupt jobs, but they will — and already do — create a host of new occupations and wholly new industries.
But, but, but: There's still a dire lack of job training in the U.S. — a necessary step to prepare workers for the future of work.
- All of Cognizant's jobs of the future — both high skill and low skill — are tech-infused, and companies will need to train and retrain employees to prepare them for these roles, says Brown.
- "The road to the future of work runs right through HR," he says.
Go deeper: Browse the jobs of the future
