I had a cold call the other day from "The British Chamber of Commerce" they were doing a survey about recruitment, skills and graduates.
We got onto a question about Graduates having the right skills or wrong skills and I said pretty much all of the graduates I meet today have the wrong skills. "So what skills do they need?" was the response and he started to list the answers he had. None of the responses met with my approval, the closest being "IT skills". When I asked him what that meant, he said, "word, excel". Young people today learn all that at school.
My point being that, in my view, Graduates don't have the right skills (they tell me this too) and the people that are in place to make sure they have the right skills, are not even creating the right responses in questionnaires. So I think we have a long way to go.
My parents were of a generation that had jobs for life, but even my generation, Generation X have needed to change what we do as we get older. The difference I think for Millennials and Generation Z is that the change will happen faster and faster.
10 years ago iTunes was haled as they new way to buy music, Apple is now closing it down as we now stream music. Social wasn't around 15 years ago, 80% of the internet enabled population is on it. And it represents a free and frictionless way for us to communicate globally.
Do we need to continually work our ways to meet these new challenges, you bet we do!
With the advent of AI, basic cognitive skills, such as reading and basic numeracy, will not suffice for many jobs, while demand for advanced technological skills, such as coding and programming, will rise, by 55% in 2030, according to our analysis.
https://hbr.org/2018/05/automation-will-make-lifelong-learning-a-necessary-part-of-work