How Technological Progress Affects Career Choices

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

We have heard hundreds of variations of this question not only as a child or a teenager but most probably also as a young adult. We all go through very different thought processes, but there is one common experience: Our career choices are shaped by our adventures and the environment around us. Still, nowadays, “the environment around us” is changing more and more rapidly. With the accelerating progress of technology; things we read, how we gossip, what we share with others, basically lifestyles all around the world also change. Naturally, career choices get their share as well. 

A direct example of that would be simply something we are currently living through: “The Influencer Era.” In 2009, “YouTube bloggers” who would simply make videos on specific topics emerged. But the breakthrough was around 2014: Instagram introduced us to modern-day influencers, who share their daily lives and advertise products for their “online followers” to purchase. Although the influencer era has gone through several milestones, the rise of TikTok is a special case: During the first lockdown in the COVID-19 pandemic, the average time a user from the United States spent using the app was 14 hours and 18 minutes. This trend led to a growth in the number of influencers on the application and nowadays, it has come to be the primary platform for influencers and content creators.

But what makes TikTok vary from others that much? The answer is simple: An endless flow of short videos is designed for you considering all of your past actions on the platform. Such an algorithm allows its users to encounter hundreds of content creators who are directly or indirectly influencing them to use specific products for a specific problem, visit a specific restaurant in the city they live in, and so on. Compared to Instagram, it is much easier to become famous on TikTok due to the nature of its algorithm, and therefore more and more people are using TikTok to earn real-life money for creating videos for companies. This has come to an extent that more and more influencers every day share that they are leaving their studies to focus on their social media profiles, proving once again that it has become an alternative to ‘normal careers.”

There is a newly emerging but much more extensional effect of technological changes on career choices, however. Research published by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training in 2018 shows that technological progress may speed up the shift to service industries and negatively affect the manufacturing industry. Why is that? With each development in technology, manufacturing processes become more automatized and the need for direct labor decreases. Simply, workers are offset by machines and algorithms that can produce goods through their systems. This decrease in job openings for manufacturing is forecasted to lead people to service industries such as accounting services, advertising, and administrative and support services that include cleaners, helpers, and patient carers.

Another finding of the research suggests that the development of technology may also increase the polarization in job growth. With technological progress, the need for people who work in technology (such as computer scientists, network architectures, etc.) increases rapidly as well, because algorithms and machinery created become more and more complex. This leads to a fast growth projected for high-skill occupations and moderate growth for specific lower-skill jobs. Job polarization is deemed a big challenge by the EU, as it causes a rise of inequalities between those who have access to good quality work and those who end up having low-paying jobs.

With all the new possible career choices entering our lives, people’s tendency to choose the ones that have higher salaries and more flexible working conditions also increases. Still, there have been many similar trends in the past when it comes to job selection. With the increase of usage of technology in everyday life, more people have access to different options but the way those options are presented affects their thought process. Research by the OECD shows that young people in developing countries tend to choose careers in engineering or medicine rather than other careers even if they do not have a primary interest, and this is because such jobs are presented as “guaranteeing a comfortable life” by the elderly. Such anchoring is supported by a confirmation bias as well: In developing countries, high-skilled jobs, especially the ones that have a strong relation with STEM, are considered to be much more valuable compared to other careers by public opinion, which leads people who are clueless about what they want to end up as choose such careers, again as a guarantee.

In conclusion, technological changes have started to influence our career choices, especially those of young people, but it is only the beginning. However, current showings also prove that people’s behaviors in this matter are still affected by various biases.

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