As we near Labor Day—the annual celebration of the contributions that American workers have made to our economy and society—it’s an ideal time to reflect on how the nature of work itself has changed.
Labor Day became an official holiday in 1894 and now, more than a century and two Industrial Revolutions later, we still celebrate workers’ contributions, although the work itself looks very different now.
The common thread through the labor transformation is the required set of skills. In the pre-industrial economy, hands on, skilled labor was dominant, but production was intensive and slower. In the industrialized economy, the pipelined assembly line was the innovation of the day, and a worker’s skillset centered on a single aspect of production, spreading the work among many individuals. Knowledge was limited but production grew massive. Required skills evolved slowly, and workers held their job for a lifetime.
Today, there’s a new shift happening in our digital and service-focused economy: rapid skills transformation. The job market is changing so rapidly that the skills needed to perform these jobs transform every few years, intensifying pressure on workers to learn continually and, in some cases, transition entirely into new and emerging fields.
EdX recently conducted a survey of 1,000 consumers aged 25-44 and found that 29% of respondents had completely changed fields since starting their first job post-college. Strikingly, only about 20% of those surveyed said that the education from their college major still applied to their current field. The career fluidity illustrated by this survey is a far cry from factory workers who’d spend decades at the same station.
Skills transformation is now the rule, not the exception. It’s nearly impossible now to study one subject in school and never again return to the classroom. Some of today’s most lucrative industries, such as data science, were invented less than 10 years ago. Advances in technology, automation, artificial intelligence and big data are revolutionizing every field and require refreshed skills at such an accelerated rate that traditional educational programs cannot keep up. Furthermore, jobs are becoming hybridized and require a mix of different skillsets.
The good news is that there are more opportunities for keeping pace with skills transformation in the workplace than ever before: online and blended degree programs, coding bootcamps, online microcredentials, massive open online courses (MOOCs) and more. This cornucopia of options didn’t exist a few short years ago, but now can be pursued flexibly in a worker’s spare time. For example, a Marketing Manager might have studied marketing in college, but is now earning a credential in data analytics to make more data-driven decisions on the job.
This can be a lot for an individual employee to take on. But as edX’s survey respondents shared, there are some powerful reasons why they’re willing to go the extra mile. Thirty-nine percent said that were looking for salary increases, 21% said that they were interested in entering a different field and 20% are looking for upward career mobility.
Consider taking the time this long weekend to reflect on this reality and come up with a game plan for how you can make a valuable investment in your skill set. Ask your employer how they can support your education, sign up for an evening class, turn to online learning resources or even just have a conversation with a mentor about how you can give yourself a leg up. Opportunities abound as skills transformation in the workplace creates numerous openings.