how employers are preparing the next generation workforce

At Standard Chartered, a bank that employs more than 80,000 people globally, many jobs now belong to one of two categories.

Some employees work in “sunrise” roles, such as computing or cloud management, where demand is expected to increase over the next five years. Others work in jobs labelled “sunset”, often those vulnerable to automation, which are set to decline.

The categorisation is the bank’s response to imminent and sweeping workforce upheaval.

A quarter of global chief executives warned in a report last week that they expected the size of their workforces to drop by at least 5 per cent this year, as generative artificial intelligence tools are rolled out. Media and entertainment, banking, insurance and logistics were among the industries most likely to predict job losses.

Karin Kimbrough, chief economist at professional network LinkedIn, says such forecasts “spook people”, prompting panicked thoughts of, “Oh gosh, I have to become a coder” or apply for jobs in green industries.

Jobs of the future

As advances in areas like AI threaten jobs globally, this FT series looks at what roles will be in demand over the next decade, and how employers are preparing for them

Part one: Science fiction to fact
Part two: New jobs, green jobs
Part three: The care conundrum 
Part four: Quiet hiring
Part five: Career questions answered

But change, adds Kimbrough, can be an opportunity: “As jobs rotate out of prominence, new ones come in.”

Some employers such as Standard Chartered are discovering it is possible to find clues about coming workforce needs and prepare accordingly. The bank is offering training to staff to help those in at-risk jobs prepare for sunrise roles. More than 32,000 have taken up the offer on courses from data analytics to sustainable finance and leadership.

Exact predictions of what kinds of work will emerge and increase in demand over the next decade are notoriously difficult. But strategists are finding signals in today’s economy. The…