Economist 上专题的第二部分
Learning and earning
学习与收入
But even though technology may not destroy jobs in aggregate, it does force change upon many people. Between 1996 and 2015 the share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25.5% to 21%, eliminating 7m jobs. According to research by Pascual Restrepo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the 2007-08 financial crisis made things worse: between 2007 and 2015 job openings for unskilled routine work suffered a 55% decline relative to other jobs.
但是尽管技术的革新没有给全部工作岗位带来毁灭,至少促使许多人去寻求改变。在 1996 到 2015 年间,美国劳动市场上一般性办公岗位所占的比例从 25.5% 减少到 21% ,七百万的工作岗位因此消失。麻省理工学院 (MIT) 的 Pascual Restrepo 研究指出,2007-2008 年间的经济危机更是加重了这一现象,在 2007 到 2015 年间,相较于其他工作岗位,不需要专业技能的工作岗位减少了 55 %。
In many occupations it has become essential to acquire new skills as established ones become obsolete. Burning Glass Technologies, a Boston-based startup that analyses labour markets by scraping data from online job advertisements, finds that the biggest demand is for new combinations of skills—what its boss, Matt Sigelman, calls “hybrid jobs”. Coding skills, for example, are now being required well beyond the technology sector. In America, 49% of postings in the quartile of occupations with the highest pay are for jobs that frequently ask for coding skills (see chart). The composition of new jobs is also changing rapidly. Over the past five years, demand for data analysts has grown by 372%; within that segment, demand for data-visualisation skills has shot up by 2,574%.
在许多职位上,由于旧的职业技能变得过时,对于新技能的学习正在成为必须。Burning Glass Technologies ,一家位于波士顿采集分析网络上工作广告的新公司的老板 Matt Sigelman 认为,紧缺的工作岗位所急需的是组合技能,他称之为混合工作。以编程为例,这类工作所需求的技能远远超过了技术方面。在美国,前四分之一的高薪岗位中的 49% 需要掌握编程技能。新工作的组合需求同样正在快速变化。在过去的五年中,对于数据分析师的需求增长了 372% ,而在其中,对于数据视觉化技能则增长了 2574%。
A college degree at the start of a working career does not answer the need for the continuous acquisition of new skills, especially as careerspans are lengthening. Vocational training is good at giving people job-specific skills, but those, too, will need to be updated over and over again during a career lasting decades. “Germany is often lauded for its apprenticeships, but the economy has failed to adapt to the knowledge economy,” says Andreas Schleicher, head of the education directorate of the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. “Vocational training has a role, but training someone early to do one thing all their lives is not the answer to lifelong learning.”
在职业生涯开始阶段的一个学士学位并不能满足对于工作岗位上新技能的需求,特别是当工作年限还在增加的时候。假期培训给人们提供了一个良好的专业技能培训机会,但是这种培训在职业生涯中同样需要反复进行。OECD,一个多数富裕国家的俱乐部,它的教育委员会长 Andreas Schleicher 指出:“德国因其学徒制度广受赞誉,但同样不能满足只是经济时代的需求,假期培训很重要,但在一个人的人生中尽可能早的去接受培训并不是终生学习的答案。”