Diarist Flight of the
Dr Paul Redmond @drpaulredmond Living Dead Zombie
The gruesome incident occurred while I was at an airport checking in my bag. Up until then, everything to do with the trip had been handled by me. Booking the flights? Check. Choosing the seat? Check. Printing the boarding pass? You bet. Don’t ask me how, but I’d even managed to rustle up an in-flight meal. All of it had been done by me, on line, without speaking to another soul.
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And that’s how it would have stayed if I hadn’t had a bag to check in. For it was at the baggage desk that I had my zombie encounter. His name was Sean (as in of the dead).
The conversation went as follows: Sean: “Did you pack the case yourself, sir?” Me: “Yes.” Sean: “Has anyone asked you to carry anything on their behalf?” Me: “No.” Sean: “Any liquids, knives or potentially hazardous chemicals?” Me: “No.” Sean: “Thank you. Have a nice flight.”
Important clarification: Sean wasn’t a zombie. In fact he was a bright, friendly, professional young man. It was Sean’s job that was the zombie.
his summer I found myself coming face to face with a zombie.
Practically every task undertaken by Sean that day while checking in my bag could have been done cheaper and perhaps more reliably by a machine. Even the conversation he and I were forced to exchange, with a few tweaks, could have been handled by the same voice-recognition software that most of us now have on our phones. If Siri can tell me whether or not it’s happy (Siri’s answer: “I’m happy, I hope you are, too,”) surely it won’t be long before some gizmo is checking in my bags.
The rise of zombie jobs Zombie jobs are jobs that have had their insides replaced by technology. By 2025, it’s claimed that up to 22.7 million will have been lost to digitisation. Admittedly, up to 13.6 million new jobs will have been created, mostly in software, engineering, design, maintenance, support and training, but that still leaves a deficit of over 9 million jobs. Millions of other jobs will remain only to become zombiefied by relentless benchmarking, non-stop process mapping and ubiquitous technology.
So what? Jobs change and evolve. The difference now is that unlike in the past, the jobs that have been phased out by technology are not just those requiring low-level skills and knowledge. Today’s job zombification is affecting jobs like ours.
jobs are jobs
that have had their insides replaced by technology.
Digital Taylorism The list of jobs that are risk of imminent zombification grows longer by the year. Accounts clerks, loss adjustment experts, data entry workers, library technicians, insurance agents, loans officers, tax preparers, watch repairers, telemarketers, bus and taxi drivers, traffic police, home delivery workers, jobs at petrol stations, car washes and parking lots, airport check-in workers (sorry, Sean). None of these jobs are tipped to make it beyond the next decade. And it’s worth stressing again: many of these jobs on the endangered list were once considered untouchable knowledge jobs.
In hospitals, it’s not the porters and receptionists who face imminent zombification. Thanks to laser technology and robotics, the surgeons and consultants are suddenly at risk. Nearer to home, when much of the world’s acquired learning is available online and MOOCs have transformed what it means to ‘go’ to university, what’s the point of a lecture? More to the point, what’s the point of a lecturer?
Dr Paul Redmond, Director of Student Life, University of Manchester
How to avoid becoming a zombie Recognising the symptoms of job zombification is a skill we all need – particularly those whose work involves helping students prepare for the job market. This year’s new undergraduates will have to somehow remain not just employed but employable until at least the mid-2060s. For them, numerous career changes will be the norm. Rather than having a job for life, trading years of future time for the promise of security, this generation will need to become skilled at jumping ship. They will need to know when to get out before the zombies move in.
Perhaps what we need is a new breed of vocational zombie hunters: experts who are able to identify jobs before they reach their sell-by date, while at the same time offering tips about the jobs and careers that will be needed in the future.
Zombie Hunter: Imagine that on your business card. n
www.agr.org.uk | Graduate Recruiter 31
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