- Survival for future jobs
You are in a future world and have all highly functional abilities like coding, App making, editing, etc, with vast experience in your field. You are seeking a job in the world where there are robots to do all the required tasks related to your skills with perfection. So, what will be the chances for you to have a job in such a scenario? This will be the future world with all robotic development where robots will have your jobs with more efficiency in their work. But wait, you don’t need to panick because there are some skills by developing which you can save a job for you in future. These skills are called “soft skills”.
Soft skills are different from the hard skills or the professional skills which are measurable and you acquire or learn during your educational period in order to get a job like coding, programming, teaching, etc. Soft skills, mostly known as ‘personal skills’ or ‘key competencies’, are the tangible skills which you need to have throughout of your life. These skills not only help you in your personal life but by enhancing them further, you can also have a successful professional life. In fact, these will be the most important skills in the future world of artificial intelligence where all hard skills will be under the control of machines. Here is the list of some Important Soft Skills.
- Analytical Reasoning
- Verbal and Written Communication
- Time Management Abilities
- Leadership Quality
- Problem Solving
- Adaptability
- Team Management
- Pressure Handling
- Critical Thinking
- Creative Abilities
Although there are much more, these will be the most important ones which you will need in future. Already exchanging of machines with human employment and the use of artificial intelligence in professional fields is alarming and according to some statistics, by the year 2020, five million jobs will be lost because artificial intelligence and robots will take place of human workers. In that time robots will be the teachers, coders, programmers, engineers, medical officials and anything you can imagine. And no doubt, they will be better, more efficient and highly competent than humans. Even now, this time, many companies are using robots as labour than the human workers.
One example is of Alibaba warehouse in China which is run by just 60 robots. When they get an order, a robot finds the product, picks one from the bulk of shelves and delivers it to the packaging department which is thankfully still under humans. But the company can replace them with robots at any time by seeing their productivity in the other department which is 300 times higher than humans. They are already doing the 70pc work in the warehouse effectively and the other 30pc can be taken from humans any time. Does it sound alarming?
Pakistan is already much behind than other developing countries and ignoring the need of time will create much chaos. Unfortunately, our educational system has total focus on creating some slave minds that would only come forward for jobs in some technical, medical or engineering fields
Yes, it is. It is the high time people should start focusing on the future skills known as soft skills. These are the only skills which cannot be done or acquired by Machines or Robots as artificial intelligence cannot have the grasp on them. It is proven that no matter how hard machines would be taught to acquire the emotional state, they cannot understand the complexity of emotions thus cannot be able to attain them. Humans still have power or superiority over machines because of soft skills. Despite being at the risk of losing five million jobs in the near future, people have a chance as 2.1 million new jobs will be open related to these soft skills and they can be the part of them by preparing their-selves now. Machines cannot imitate human behavior regarding these skills so those 2.1 million jobs will surely be saved for humans.
Now the question rises how people can learn soft skills. These skills have inherent traces in all human beings. Some are born leaders. Some have natural creative and time management qualities. Some have inherent ability of critical thinking. Some people can be good in communication. Some people can be good at problem solving or adaptability. In short, people need to find their area of expertise so that they can polish them further and utilise them in their professional life appropriately.
On the other hand, institutions can also provide guidance and help in this regard. They have a powerful impact on a person’s mind. They must be competent enough to develop an overall personality with the right amalgamation of hard and soft skills. Most of the countries have started to focus on these issues. They have institutes which understand a person’s personality and his core skills and help him to enhance it. That’s why their people are highly intellectual and have critical mindsets.
In order to match the world and be the part of future, Pakistan also needs to focus on this issue. Pakistan is already much behind than other developing countries and ignoring the need of time will create much chaos. Unfortunately, our educational system has total focus on creating some slave minds that would only come forward for jobs in some technical, medical or engineering fields. The only purpose of educational institutions is to teach some hard skills related to some specific fields in order to secure a good job. Everyone here wants to be a doctor, engineer or other such technical field. Pakistan doesn’t have a long-term plan for future development and the educational system does not focus on developing an effective personality with core abilities.
Pakistan can still focus on these issues and resolve it on time for securing a better future in this world. The covernment can make proper educational policies and implement in institutes. It can initiate such separate institutes which can teach these skills in more professional and competent manners. It can run awareness campaigns collaborating with the foreign world. In short, there are many ways in which it can take proper steps and prepare itself for future world and if they don’t take action now, they will lose the race.
