The changing nature of occupations is the first issue addressed in this report. It talks about the current capabilities for automation in the workplace. Using current technologies it suggests that around 20% of occupations in the US could have up to 70% of job activities (relevant to that occupation) be done by a machine using currently available technology. This has been plotted in a graph that also shows the automation potential decrease as you increase the total percentage of job occupations.

 

Another important point raised in the report is how occupations will shift from being well-defined to project-based work, and how this is already happening in occupations where automation of work is currently being implemented. What this means is that instead of being employed to do a set job within an organisation employees will work across a variety of areas within the business or be called in during specific projects creating a more on-demand hiring format similar to hiring a contractor to do work for the business.

 

This last point feeds into the shift between salary work moving towards independent work. With the increase in demand for independent work from people in salary-based jobs automation of the workforce is an easy way to achieve this. Due to the potential for a more project based employed workforce it makes it significantly easier for a person to either work completely independently or in a form of hybrid employment which is a mix between the current standard salary based well-defined work, and independent self-employment.

 

The last point from the 2016 report that should be mentioned is how the shift in employment is going to change with regards to skill sets. In the past (and still for the most part presently) there has been a focus on broad skills that can complete the work relevant to businesses operations. With the introduction of the digital workforce on a larger scale employers are beginning to shift away from their traditional criteria for hiring employees and are now looking to fill positions that compliment these machines by either maintaining them and the data they produce, or working alongside these machines to complete tasks that are currently beyond the programs capacity. It states in the report that on major networking platforms like LinkedIn users with skills or experience in fields such as, cloud computing, distributed computing, big data, marketing analytics and user-face design are in high demand. Of course this list can not be considered exhaustive and there are still plenty of traditional jobs in high demand, however the fact that such a large volume of in demand jobs come under the field of working alongside machines shows the way jobs in business have already begun to change.