Architects\, secretaries and lawyers facing biggest changes at work

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Architects, secretaries and lawyers facing biggest changes at work

The tasks that architects have to do have changed by more than 42 per cent between 2006 and 2016, while butchers have bucked the trend with their work day changed by only 6 per cent.

A secretary's job has changed by 30 per cent over that period and solicitors' work has changed by 23 per cent, but there has only been a 13 per cent change in police work, according to a new report on the future of skills in Australia commissioned by Google and produced by advisory firm AlphaBeta.

"Some of the big jobs that will require more retraining are electrician jobs, managers, accountants, secretaries and administrative roles," director at AlphaBeta Andrew Charlton said.

"The tasks falling out of the economy are the ones being replaced by machines, that is, routine administrative tasks and manual physical tasks, which means we've lost hundreds of thousands of secretary jobs and machine-operated jobs."

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Woollahra butcher Anthony Puharich said he is happy his job hasn't changed over the years and said it is something that makes the job so "genuine and authentic".

"What we do has been handed down through the generations," he said. "I'm happy to keep improving and doing things better of course, but in terms of the core of what we do as an industry, I don't think much has changed, and I think that's something to celebrate."

Dr Charlton said that while a few jobs are disappearing from the economy, most roles are just changing as some tasks become automated.

Technological advances mean an architect can now complete technical drawing tasks much faster through new software and they are spending more time liaising with clients or focusing on design.

The flow-on effect means educators will need to implement major changes to curricula to focus more on social capabilities, as the technical aspects of jobs become automated.

On-the-job training will also become a much bigger part of workers' weeks, and are expected to spend an additional three hours every week learning new skills by 2040, the equivalent of 8000 extra hours over their working lives or an extra 300 billion hours across the population.

The time spent on learning new skills after the age of 21 will also triple from two hours last year to six hours per week by 2040, with education before the age of 21 remaining similar to current levels.

"The shift towards lifetime learning will cause Australians to acquire 41 per cent of their skills later in life in 2040, up from 19 per cent today," the report finds.

This will be done through an increase in "targeted, flexible, work-based training" and short courses, rather than lengthy tertiary qualifications.

Professor John Buchanan, head of business analytics at the University of Sydney's Business School, said that on-the-job training is important and rewarding employees when it is done well.

"The thing is employers have been reluctant to take responsibility [for training] and expect employees to bear that burden," he said.

"The challenge is how do you get employers to become active and constructive players in this. Employees should be throwing the expectation back."

Businesses and the government will also need to improve in identifying the roles that are likely to be impacted by technology and offshoring and begin retraining them now, the report finds.

"Our analysis adds urgency to the responsibility of Australian businesses to support the reskilling revolution," it states.

A number of the recommended changes are being explored by schools and universities in NSW, including the introduction of micro credentials at UNSW to support reskilling and upskilling by people who are in the workforce.

The secretary of the NSW Department of Education Mark Scott has also identified the importance of teaching capabilities such as critical thinking, creativity and collaboration alongside traditional subjects, as the department undertakes a once-in-a-generation review of the school curriculum.

Dr Charlton welcomed these changes but said more needs to be done, especially by businesses.

"There are lots of great new initiatives but in my mind, there's no question that the scale of retraining isn't enough to support workers today whose jobs are changing, the mid-career workers who are experiencing significant change," Dr Charlton said.

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