Can we really imagine the jobs of the tomorrow ?

Job fore­cas­ting can be car­ried out in two ways. The first, metho­di­cal and somew­hat short-sigh­ted, is car­ried out by ins­ti­tu­tions often asso­cia­ted with indus­trial sec­tors or pro­fes­sio­nal branches, within the fra­me­work of what is known in France as the Ges­tion pré­vi­sion­nelle des métiers et com­pé­tences (GPEC). The aim is to anti­ci­pate needs, detect emer­ging issues and prevent pro­fes­sio­nal dead­locks. These ins­ti­tu­tions base their rea­so­ning on the exis­ting situa­tion and the trends iden­ti­fied by players in the sec­tor. Their pro­jec­tions are conti­nuous lines.

In contrast, other actors, par­ti­cu­lar­ly in the consul­tan­cy sec­tor, work on the dis­con­ti­nuous : dis­rup­tion, the radi­cal­ly new, and the unfo­re­seen, all of which never­the­less has to be anti­ci­pa­ted. The dis­course then oscil­lates bet­ween alar­mism, even catas­tro­phism, and a form of enthu­siasm that resorts to hyper­bole. The digi­tal revo­lu­tion in its various forms offers excellent examples, which can be repre­sen­ted with the “Hype Cycle” model high­ligh­ted by Gart­ner : tech­no­lo­gi­cal trig­ger, peak of exag­ge­ra­ted expec­ta­tions, trough of disillu­sion­ment, gra­dual rise and pro­duc­ti­vi­ty pla­teau. Ten years ago, it was ube­ri­sa­tion that would sweep eve­ry­thing away. Today it is AI. There is no doubt that the meta­verse trend will cause it to go into overdrive.

As far as jobs are concer­ned, you have no doubt heard the stri­king phrase, “60% of jobs in 2030 do not yet exist” from a 2018 stu­dy by EY. But as Cécile Jol­ly, a futu­rist at France Stra­té­gie, reminds us, some of these new pro­fes­sions will be very small in terms of num­bers and will the­re­fore not struc­tu­ral­ly change the nature of the pro­fes­sio­nal world. There is a lot of talk about influen­cers on You­Tube and Ins­ta­gram, but how many are there and how many will there be in the future ?

Fur­ther­more, the num­ber of jobs crea­ted from scratch is negli­gible. As Isa­belle Rou­han reminds us in this dos­sier, there are “ver­ti­cal trades” that will not disap­pear but will be rewor­ked, and which, by mobi­li­sing more robots or algo­rithms, will change the role and func­tions of the pro­fes­sio­nals invol­ved in this trade.

At the same time, some pro­fes­sions seem to be eter­nal but are under­going pro­found changes. In inter­vie­wing Adrien Book on the trans­for­ma­tions of mana­ge­ment with the web3, for this dos­sier, the conver­sa­tion focu­sed on the new deve­lop­ments that are taking place before our eyes but the power of which we do not yet ful­ly appre­ciate. “The role of a concierge, for example, is one that has evol­ved the most in recent years : digi­codes on the one hand, inser­tion in the last mile of deli­ve­ries on the other, have trans­for­med this pro­fes­sion. Concierge ser­vices are also emer­ging around Airbnb, with other skills and a lot of mobi­li­ty. As with the role of the concierge, the once simple job of deli­ve­ry dri­ver has been pro­found­ly trans­for­med with the increa­sing num­ber of drop-off points and human inter­ac­tion, the dif­fi­cul­ties of acces­sing these drop-off points, the use of GPS, the increa­sing lack of flui­di­ty of urban car traf­fic, and the emer­gence of cyclist deli­ve­ry dri­vers for the final stretch.

Thin­king serious­ly about the jobs of the future means not get­ting car­ried away by hyper­bo­lic figures, the hope of a great trans­for­ma­tion or the fear of a “great repla­ce­ment” by robots or AI. It also means that we should not ove­rem­pha­sise anec­do­tal changes, while neglec­ting more pro­found but less spec­ta­cu­lar deve­lop­ments. And it means consi­de­ring the weight of rea­li­ty. “There is a lot of talk about arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence,” notes Adrien Book. That’s fine, we must be inter­es­ted in it. But we are in 2022 and we are still tal­king about digi­ta­li­sa­tion and a digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion as we were alrea­dy doing twen­ty years ago. The foun­da­tions have yet to be deve­lo­ped. The digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of the world is both very fast and very slow.

What we can observe is the emer­gence of pro­fes­sions of the future. The example of data pro­fes­sions, an increa­sin­gly impor­tant area of acti­vi­ty, pro­vides a good illus­tra­tion of this : we are wit­nes­sing a gra­dual dif­fe­ren­tia­tion and the crys­tal­li­sa­tion of new professions.

Here are three areas of deve­lop­ment, where new jobs are emerging.

Auto­ma­tion of the world is well under­way. It is pro­cee­ding along two paral­lel paths : soft­ware and hard­ware. In both cases, it raises the ques­tion of inter­ac­tions with humans, and a whole range of pro­fes­sions are deve­lo­ping around these interactions.

Both appli­ca­tions and algo­rithms are desi­gned for human users, and a clear­ly iden­ti­fied chal­lenge is to opti­mise and faci­li­tate the life of these users, both in terms of dis­co­ve­ry or appro­pria­tion and in terms of regu­lar use, which becomes a rou­tine. User expe­rience pro­fes­sions are deve­lo­ping around this demand, at the cross­roads of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, desi­gn, and ergo­no­mics. Either it is a ques­tion of ensu­ring that the expe­rience is as smooth as pos­sible without relying on a third par­ty (bot or human), and the issues at stake are good desi­gn (of a page, a sys­tem) or it is a ques­tion of orga­ni­sing this pro­cess so that it is fluid, easy and effi­cient. Final­ly, mea­su­ring the per­for­mance of these dif­ferent seg­ments is also an issue – and a range of pro­fes­sio­nal spe­cia­li­ties – in its own right.

As for robots, both in the indus­trial envi­ron­ment and in ser­vice robo­tics when they inte­grate mobi­li­ty func­tions, human pro­fes­sions are emer­ging around robot edu­ca­tion and ergo­no­mics in its man-machine inter­face speciality.

The same edu­ca­tio­nal needs are deve­lo­ping on the side of AIs, whose per­for­mance often depends less on the num­ber of lines of code than on the num­ber of hours spent pro­ces­sing data, a task that is not com­ple­te­ly automatic.

Envi­ron­men­tal tran­si­tions are deve­lo­ping in seve­ral direc­tions, with the emer­gence of new professions.

Envi­ron­men­tal concerns are increa­sin­gly inte­gra­ted into agri­cul­ture, which after a cen­tu­ry of hea­vy mecha­ni­sa­tion and mas­sive che­mi­cal use is now lear­ning to care­ful­ly manage soil and inputs. Moni­to­ring of soil bio­che­mis­try, hydro­me­try and heat (dro­nau­tics, sen­sors) calls for a whole range of emer­ging spe­cia­li­ties, from ope­ra­ting drones to engi­nee­ring, as well as aspects of the far­ming pro­fes­sion that can, in large farms, give rise to entire trades. The sale of inputs is increa­sin­gly inte­gra­ted into ser­vice packages that include advice and training.

Mana­ge­ment of natu­ral areas, and in par­ti­cu­lar forests and water­ways, now calls for new spe­cia­li­sa­tions in moni­to­ring, diag­no­sis, and intervention.

The ener­gy tran­si­tion, based on the mana­ge­ment of CO2 and the switch to elec­tri­cal power for some uses asso­cia­ted with hydro­car­bons, is seeing the emer­gence of new jobs. First of all, there are all of those in consul­ting, from the deve­lop­ment of appli­ca­tions for choo­sing solar panels to local sup­port acti­vi­ties. Then there are those in ins­tal­la­tion and main­te­nance (of panels, heat pumps, sto­rage solu­tions, metha­ni­sa­tion sys­tems, etc.). Final­ly, there are those of mana­ge­ment : car­bon accoun­ting, fleet mana­ge­ment, a field that also sees the emer­gence of a whole range of manual jobs.

A sepa­rate area is that of the smart city, which is seeing the emer­gence of pro­fes­sions in the field of desi­gn (of buil­dings and neigh­bou­rhoods), flow mana­ge­ment (solid and liquid), and also air mana­ge­ment. These mana­ge­ment jobs are mea­su­re­ment jobs (pol­lu­tion, bio­che­mi­cal balances), deci­sion making jobs, which are appea­ring within the major ser­vice pro­vi­ders or public authorities.

The digi­ti­sa­tion of the world and the switch to all-digi­tal tech­no­lo­gy in seve­ral sec­tors raises new ques­tions : data secu­ri­ty and por­ta­bi­li­ty, confi­den­tia­li­ty of exchanges, ethi­cal qua­li­ty of exchanges and data management.

Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty is alrea­dy an indus­trial pro­fes­sion in its own right, with clus­ters of human pro­fes­sions invol­ved in diag­no­sis, solu­tions, deve­lop­ment and moni­to­ring. But on the ethi­cal side, some of these func­tions are only just emer­ging but will one day be pro­fes­sions, like com­pliance offi­cers, who have become esta­bli­shed in many companies.

Last­ly, ethics is lin­ked to envi­ron­men­tal tran­si­tions : rela­tions with ani­mals, plants, cer­tain water­courses and the envi­ron­ment in the broad sense are caught up in a simul­ta­neous drive for regu­la­tion (with legal aspects and cri­mi­nal risks) and pre­ven­tive atten­tion, which is lea­ding to the emer­gence of new func­tions and jobs.