Employees are preparing for a tech-focused world
Globally, workers are focused on developing their human skills, even as they see a future dominated by technology-driven work and automation, according to a new study from Pearson.
For the latest edition of the Pearson Skills Outlook series, Pearson partnered with Google to examine how and why people in the US, UK, India, and Brazil are looking to upskill as they face a rapidly changing economy.
Pearson Skills Outlook: Employee View, the survey of 4,000 workers across those four labour markets, revealed that people are most interested in careers in tech and business-related fields such as e-commerce, software services, data science, and financial services. However, they believe that they will need to focus on human skills to land these jobs or advance in their current role. They believe human skills – like problem-solving, leadership, and teamwork – are the most attractive to employers now and in the future.
These are the top two human skills that workers in each market are actively prioritising developing and maintaining to advance their careers:
- US: Problem-solving; Decision making
- UK: Problem-solving; Teamwork
- Brazil: Teamwork; Leadership
- India: Teamwork; Data processing
Looking to the future, the top two skills workers want to train for remain focused on human skills in markets other than India:
- US: Leadership; Entrepreneurial skills and Project management [Tie]
- UK: Leadership; Problem-solving
- Brazil: Language skills; Leadership
- India: Problem-solving; Coding/Programming, Data processing, and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning [Tie]
The report also signals that in non-English speaking countries, learning English is emerging as a key skill for employees to advance in their careers, according to 85% of Indians and 77% of Brazilians.
“This valuable new research shows that job seekers are prioritising human skills at a time when machine learning and artificial intelligence are having an increasing influence on work,” said Mike Howells, president of Pearson Workforce Skills. “Human skills are proving critical to personal and organisational success, and workers are motivated to sharpen and develop those skills to stay competitive and advance their careers.”
The study also found that the majority of workers (73% of Americans, 68% of British, 89% of Indians and 70% of Brazilians) also say they prefer to learn via their employer. And an even higher number expect their employer will increase or maintain learning and development opportunities.
