As the world becomes globalised and with an increase in technology, there is no doubt there will be some new jobs while others will, over time, become more relevant than they are today.
According to some local entities, there will be a plethora of new job positions across all sectors that will be in demand over the next five to ten years. Key among them are careers in information technology, finance, manufacturing, agriculture, medicine and the cultural industries, a number of them in the areas of research, human resources and consultancy.
Barbados Employers’ Confederation executive director Tony Walcott said while all jobs were important, the challenge for a small nation such as Barbados was for people to constantly stay abreast of world changes and acquire greater skill levels in order to make themselves more marketable.
He said he did not believe any job would become less relevant.
“Certainly, skills in information technology will be one that people are going to have to keep very current on because the technologies are changing so rapidly. If you can’t master those skills, you are going to be left behind.
“People are going to have to change their attitude and mindset and move to lifelong learning.
“I think for many of us the challenge is to cast the mind forward and see what the requirements are five years out and plan for those rather than focus on current needs,” he said.
Barbados Institute of Management and Productivity executive trustee Rudy Gibbons said he believed there would be a number of new jobs in all sectors at different levels.
“At the highest level we will need persons to coach executives to understand the environment in which they operate. There will be a big demand for consultants to help companies restructure in order to meet new demands of the different environment in which we will operate.
“Then there are a number of new jobs that will emerge in the information technology area in terms of shifting from client server to cloud computing; that is where there will be an increase in demand for individual servers instead of a central server.
“There will be a demand for people to understand risk management in the financial sector and perhaps in most sectors, because things are so global today,” he explained.
Gibbons further posited that there will be a need for more researchers, particularly in the agriculture and health sectors.
Within a few years many people may not choose a career simply because it is “popular or fashionable”, says Gibbons. In fact, he believed the marketplace, both locally and worldwide, will become even more competitive because of the introduction of new and improved technologies and products.
