Over the past year, workers have been forced to adapt and be resilient to keep pace and succeed in the new world of work. Entire industries are becoming digital and the growing diffusion of work remotely it is radically changing the nature of all professions. Caught in this “Great Reshuffle,” where all the ingredients of how we work are undergoing massive changes, workers will need to keep adapting to stay relevant.
An analysis of LinkedIn on its more than 800 million members worldwide, designed to get a clearer picture of how the workers’ skills have changed over time and how they may need to change in the coming years, shows that skills have changed by an average of 24% globally since 2015. And in most cases, the pace of change has accelerated during the pandemic. And if change continues at this pace, skills may need to change another 39% to 44% by 2025. Between now and 2025, we are likely to see the emergence of three new skills among the fundamental ones for every profession.
In Italy, moreover, the need to digital skills it is greater than, for example, in the United States. Starting from a more disadvantaged digital situation, in fact, with the push of recent years, new technologies have entered all sectors more rapidly. For the financial services in Italy, for example, skills have changed by an average of 33.4% since 2015, compared to 26% in the United States and France. An administrative manager in Italy has had to update 45% of his skills from 2015 to today, a commercial manager 44.6% and even a chef 30%.
“One of the most obvious trends of the last decade is that every company is becoming a technology company. And despite the uncertainty and recent headwinds in the tech industry, the digital skills still occupy the first position in all lists of skills required in the various countries. In fact, the list of professions that do not require the use of computers and certain types of software is very limited – explains Marcello Albergoni, Country manager of LinkedIn Italy – In reality, however, there remains a very large gap between the offer and the demand for digital skills in markets around the world. The best way to fill this gap is to adopt a hiring approach competency-based, where employers look beyond traditional credentials, such as education and experience, to consider a candidate’s skills. This is the future and it is a mindset that employers need to adopt if they are to be agile and successful.”
Indeed, it is incredible to think that today it is skill mismatch also affects the Ict sector. Even a sector by vocation oriented towards innovation struggles to keep pace with the transformations underway and there are difficulties in finding professional profiles in line with the challenges of the near future. According to joint data of UnionCamere and Anpalthis difficulty increases with the level of specialization: for example it is 52% for mechanical technicians, 58% for expert applications technicians and 68% for programmer technicians.
It is also essential to train those who are already working on the new skills required by the world of work. By 2025, according to the World Economic Forum50% of the global workforce will face a reskilling. “As far as employees are concerned, given the current pace of technological change – concludes Albergoni – everyone needs to continuously expand their skills, above all because the sectors are constantly evolving. Even if you aren’t changing jobs, your job is changing on you: in Italy, the skills needed for the same job have changed by 32% in the last five years, and we expect a similar rate for the future. Organizations that understand this are thinking more critically about how to prepare new hires from day one for continuous learning in the workplace.”