World of Work

Someone once said that fifty percent (50%) of today’s first graders will have jobs that don’t even exist today! And Susan M. Johnston, in “Helping Your Child with Career Planning,” predicts that “the leading careers of the 21st century will emerge during the next ten years but are still unknown at this time.”

Here are some other trends and forecasts for the future that will impact our way of life and work from the World Future Society (reproduced with permission: Visit their website for additional forecasts at www.wfs.org).

By 2010, biomonitoring devices that resemble wristwatches will provide wearers with up-to-the-minute data about their health status.
Tiny electronic microchips implanted in a person’s forearm could transmit messages to a computer that controls the heating and lighting systems of intelligent buildings.
Farmers will become genetic engineers, growing vaccines as well as food.
Ninety percent of the world’s 6,000 languages could go extinct by 2100.
Individuals could live 120 years and use new technology to compensate for blindness, deafness, and other physical disabilities.
By 2015 an estimated 100 million teleworkers will “migrate” virtually by working online.
Worldwide e-business will boom as online shoppers purchase custom-made products for overnight delivery.
Families may spend more time together as a new 24-hour business cycle fosters online banking and shopping and makes “rush hour” irrelevant.
The new science of nanotechnology could deliver molecule-sized mechanical devices to remove environmental waste, manufacture tiny electronic components, and keep clogged human arteries clear of fat.
By 2017, human knowledge is projected to be exceeded by machine knowledge.

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A look back…into the workplace of the past
The workplace of today
A look into the future
How does the nature of work affect the planning process?
Links relating to the world of work