A school leaver today may very much wonder what their career path might end up looking like. In their parents and grand-parents day it would have been a very different employment landscape to what the young school leaver will find. Let’s have a quick look at some of the key changes and differences between today’s and previous generations young people.
Job For Life Unlikely (& Possibly Undesirable)
The one major change is the all but disappearance of the ‘job for life’ with such a changeable job market and indeed some of the changes in types of industries we will touch on later in this article. It’s important that the job seeker of the future becomes fully equipped for self-promotion and becomes adapt at marketing themselves as they will be in need of at least a few lines of work throughout their working lives.
Change In Industries
It’s not uncommon for people these days to not only work for a variety of different employers in their career but even to change industries all together. It is not uncommon for re-training to occur and even going back to college or university as a mature student to study for the first time or pursue extra qualifications or a post-graduate degree.
Portfolio Careers
Many young people have several occupations at once, doing a mixture of employment, self-employment and freelance work, often referred to as the ‘gig economy’. Working in this manner can give a sense of freedom and variety but is also a little more uncertain and tasks such as tax returns and trying to obtain a mortgage can be a little tricky, but if you search online there are always lenders for every situation, so it really works for some but might not be the best long-term answer for everyone. If they are to be working in this manner then individuals will be able to point to a variety of experience and skills on their CV.
Automation & New Industries
The fact that automation is becoming more and more common is changing the job landscape forever and in dramatic ways. From factory work to customer services there are many industries are employing a fraction of the real human employees that they used to but on the other hand many other industries are on the rise and there will be many jobs of the future in areas such as IT and related industries so with a bit of future planning there will be plenty opportunities for the school leaver of today.
Gender Balance & Family Life Different From Previous Generations
There are a lot of changes in the gender balance in the work-place in recent generations as it’s more common for women to be in the workplace but still there is a lot of work to be done addressing the gender pay gap. This also has an effect on the family dynamic and with it often being the case that both parents work (one at least part time) then it’s more common for there to be more shared parenting duties or the use of child-minders and out of school clubs, in fact it’s more common for one of the couple to work from home even in areas such as programming and coding which is going to be a trend that continues.
