The Future of Jobs Post-COVID-19

According to a recent analysis conducted by McKinsey & Company the COVID-19 crisis could leave up to 59 million jobs at risk in Europe. If we add this finding to the fact that in the United States over 40 million people have filled for unemployment benefits since February 2020, when the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China become a global pandemic, we can get a clearer picture of just how disruptive the current crisis has been to employment. Naturally, as highlighted also in a McKinsey report, the level of risk varies considerably among various jobs and industries, depending on variables such as how much of the work can be done remotely through technology or whether the job itself is system relevant or not.

Jobs at risk of disruption due to COVID-19

The breakdown of jobs at risk by job cluster in the figure below shows that 50% of all jobs at risk in Europe come from customer service and sales (25%), food services (13%), and building occupations (12%). Less affected are workers in the health, science, technology, engineering, mathematics, academia, training delivery, business, and legal professions.

Source: Safeguarding Europe’s livelihoods, McKinsey & Co.

The breakdown of jobs at risk by industry sector tells a similar story with jobs in the accommodation and food sector (74%), arts and entertainment (50%), and wholesale and retail sector (44%) being most at risk due to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis. Wholesale and retail represent around 14.6 million jobs at risk and accommodation and food around 8.4 million jobs. Sectors that are less affected are professional services (1.6 million), finance and insurance (1.2 million), and information and communication (0.6 million).

Source: Safeguarding Europe’s livelihoods, McKinsey & Co.

Jobs at risk of displacement due to COVID-19 and automation

Some jobs and industries are much more vulnerable than others. What's more worrying is that the jobs most at risk from pandemic job losses overlap to some extent with those most vulnerable to displacement through automation. According to another McKinsey paper, around 24 million jobs, almost 50 percent of the number of jobs displaced through automation, are at risk of displacement from both COVID-19 and automation.

Source: The future of work in Europe, McKinsey & Co.

The overlap varies between sectors. For example, almost 70% of jobs that could be displaced due to automation in the wholesale and retail sectors are also at risk due to COVID-19. A similar overlap may hold true of demographic groups most at risk, especially with respect to educational attainment. About 80% of jobs at risk (46 million) are held by people who do not have a tertiary degree, according to the same estimates.

Source: The future of work in Europe, McKinsey & Co.

The displacement of jobs due to automation also varies across countries, as can be seen in a recent PwC report, which revealed a range of estimates across countries for the share of existing jobs with potential high rates of automation by the 2030s. Some Eastern European countries such as Slovakia (44%) and Slovenia (42%) face high potential automation rates, while Nordic countries such as Finland (22%) have relatively lower shares of automation.

Source: Will robots really steal our jobs?, PwC

The jobs of tomorrow

According to McKinsey, three sectors are likely to account for more than 70% of Europe’s potential job growth by 2030. The strongest net gains are in human health and social work, where 4.5 million jobs could be added, followed by professional, scientific, and technical services, which could add 2.6 million jobs, and education, which could gain 2.0 million jobs.

The World Economic Forum has also recently offered a view on the jobs that will grow in the coming years. These jobs are concentrated among those professions that care for people, support the planet, manage new technologies and communicate products and services.

Source: Jobs of tomorrow, World Economic Forum

As the pandemic highlights the critical jobs in hospitals, grocery stores and schools, opportunities within the Care Economy are expected to increase substantially in the future. Similarly, jobs within technology creation and management, e-commerce and the broader knowledge economy are expected to continue to grow, but at an even more accelerated pace. Another source of job growth in the years to come will be provided by the Green Economy, as global value chains and growth models of the past are redesigned to be more sustainable.

According to the same report from the World Economic Forum, the professional clusters that exhibit the highest growth rates are the Data and AI, Green Economy, and Engineering and Cloud Computing, with annual growth rates of 41%, 35% and 34%, respectively.  However, when it comes to job openings in emerging professions over the next three years 37% of them will be in the Care Economy; 17% in Sales, Marketing and Content; 16% in Data and AI; 12% in Engineering and Cloud Computing; and 8% in People and Culture. 

Source: Jobs of tomorrow, World Economic Forum

The same report offers a breakdown per cluster. For example, In the Data Science and AI cluster, the role of Artificial Intelligence Specialist is the fastest-growing new economy role; but, the absolute number of opportunities for this profession is fairly low. On the other hand, Data Scientist jobs have slower annual growth rates but form the third-largest opportunity among the set of growing professions. In Sales, Marketing and Content, new opportunities include Digital Marketing Specialists, Content Specialists and Customer Success Specialists. In Engineering and Cloud Computing, they include DevOps and Full Stack Engineers. 

Source: Jobs of tomorrow, World Economic Forum

The Care Economy professional cluster and the Green Economy one include some of the fastest-growing professions in the world, jobs such as: Medical Assistants, Personal Aides and Fitness Instructors (Care Economy) or Solar Energy Installers, Methane Gas Generation Technicians and Green Marketers (Green Economy), to name a few of the in-demand roles.

Source: Jobs of tomorrow, World Economic Forum

While it is difficult to say what new occupations may come on stream post-COVID-19, chances are that our jobs will be divided into two broad clusters. One job cluster will most likely require a lot of people skills (the ability to engage with people, cater to their needs), and the other job cluster will be of a more technical nature involving abstract thinking skills (the ability to problem solve, think strategically and navigate problems in ambiguous times). There will of course be many overlaps between the two, as technical roles also require certain people skills, and most jobs require at least a minimal level of abstract thinking. However, there will be a clear delimitation between the Care Economy and the more technical roles specific in the Data and AI, and Engineering and Cloud Computing clusters.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the accelerated automation adoption triggered by the crisis has put tens of millions of jobs at risk across Europe and the world, with far-reaching economic and social consequences. Thus, governments and companies alike need to take decisive action to mitigate this risk and focus on the long-term labour market trends. Individuals need to develop both their soft and technical skills in order to lower the risk of being made redundant due to automation or due to the outbreak of another health crisis. However, the window of opportunity to invest in human capital and help those most affected by the recent developments is closing rapidly, and so helping individuals connect with new opportunities and preparing them for the jobs of tomorrow should become our key priorities.

Below are two videos about how safe our jobs are and how will they look like in the future:

Further reading:

• Covid, hysteresis, and the future of work (VoxEU);
• Covid-19 will only increase automation anxiety (Financial Times);
• Five robots that hope to save the US food supply chain (Financial Times);
• How the Coronavirus Crisis Is Redefining Jobs (Harvard Business Review);
• Robots help some firms, even while workers across industries struggle (MIT);
• Automation, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Labour Force (LSE).