What does the future hold for our children?

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This was published 8 years ago

What does the future hold for our children?

By Bill O'Chee
Updated

It is the end of term 3 at Queensland schools, which means students everywhere are busy making subject selections. It's a tough task as they size up what they like, what they'll be good at, and what subjects they need for their crucial university or TAFE courses when they leave school.

These are the challenges facing the O'Chee household, and I have to pity my sons. Who'd want to be a school student today?

In 20 years, robots could be doing half of our jobs, according to one study.

In 20 years, robots could be doing half of our jobs, according to one study.Credit: Thinkstock

Let's face it, when we hear predictions that half of the jobs around right now won't be here in 20 years, getting a date for the school social is the least of their worries.

Oxford University Associate Professor Michael Osborne has looked at 702 occupations and predicted that 47 per cent will fall to computerisation by 2035. That includes what have otherwise been reliable jobs like driving trucks, working in warehouses, or even real estate.

The jobs that will remain, he suggests, are those in IT, and higher level management. But these aren't easy jobs to get. That puts extra pressure on school students. They have to predict what jobs will be there in 10 or 20 years' time, work out what subjects they'll need, and then beat everyone else in order to have some semblance of a chance of a decent life.

It was all so much easier when I was at school.

If you don't believe this vision of the future, think about how jobs on the land have disappeared as a result of mechanisation over the last sixty years. That same hollowing out of jobs will now start happening in the cities, instead of country towns.

When this happens - and I say when, not if - it will create a very grim world indeed.

If we think an unemployment rate of 5 per cent or so is bad, what will life be like when the unemployment rate is 15 per cent? What sort of a society will that create?

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Social security and welfare account already for over 35 per cent of all expenditure in the current Federal Budget. However, the government predicts that it will rise by more than $20 billion in the next three years, dwarfing all other areas of expenditure put together.

If social security and welfare doubles in ten years then we will need to find another 35 per cent more tax in total.

Don't get me wrong, we need to ensure the dignity of those who cannot find work. However, the dwindling number of people on high incomes will bear the brunt of this, because many of the low and middle income jobs will disappear.

The picture this paints is of a society that could become even more divided and fractious than the present.

Of course, the answer is to grow more jobs, but it isn't that easy. Governments of both persuasions have been trying to do that for some time, and over the last 25 years, they have not managed to reduce the unemployment rate at all. If they face real change as a result of technology then I fear they will fail to even that.

How much social unrest will follow?

Returning closer to home, it is ironically my eldest son, the photographic artist, who has the least to fear. Computers lack artistic sensibility, and he's good at what he does.

His younger brother is sizing up the Army. It may not be a bad choice. After all, we could still be fighting terrorists and extremists in 10 or 20 years time.

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