Leaving Launceston to find work.
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It’s a scenario generally associated with graduates and school leavers, but one expert has warned other demographics could follow suit if the region does not embrace technological changes within the workforce.
Dr Marcus Bowles is the director and chairman of the Institute of Working Futures, a company which identifies which technologies will replace jobs down to a task level.
He said the time of talking about technology’s impact on jobs had passed.
“The future is now,” he said.
“The biggest change isn’t going to be the loss of jobs, it’s going to be that jobs are changed because automation occurs.
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“I’d estimate about 55,000 people in the next 10 years across Tasmania will need to be re-skilled.
“If that doesn’t happen, how is the state going to compete with the places where it has?”
Dr Bowles was joined by Launceston Freelance Festival founder Sue Bell and Business Action Learning business development manager Genevieve Cother for a panel discussion on the future of work, held at Enterprize Launceston on Thursday evening.
The FutureFest forum was designed to explore the changes happening at all levels of the workforce.
Dr Bowles said more planning was required if the state was going to build a base for the industries of the future.
“Tasmania is way behind the debate,” he said.
“I went and had a look for reports about Tasmania and the things I would be expecting a state government or a university to be producing just aren’t there.
“There is a real lack of data about where the jobs will be impacted and which jobs will take which tasks.”
Last month, research from Cisco and Gartner ranked Australia as one of the world’s most digitally-ready countries, based on a digital readiness index used to examine nearly 120 countries.
However, a national study completed using the same criteria revealed a deep digital divide between Tasmania and the mainland.
While Australia achieved an overall score of 17.34 out of a possible 25, Tasmania could only manage 9.65.
This was the second lowest score, ahead of the Northern Territory.
Ms Bell is among those providing the tools to survive in an ever-changing digital landscape.
Her course Cybermedia provides alternative pathways for journalists, writers and digital storytellers by giving them the knowledge and skills to create their own jobs.
Fusing together journalism, technology and digital design, the program examines the type of storytelling required for technological developments such as virtual reality and augmented reality, while also teaching students how to design for online environments.
Units for the course include Interactive storytelling, information visualisation, cyberculture, coding narratives, cyber entrepreneurship, digital nomads and freelancing, master the web, build a business, design thinking, digital activist, writing for future tech, and many more.
Ms Bell said education needed to be re-positioned to give people what they really need.
“A lot of the courses are too long,” she said.
“You don’t need a four-degree, which is obsolete when you come out of it, and that leaves you with a massive HECS debt.”
Future skills education is not just available in the media industry, but to range of other professions within the state.
Business Action Learning Tasmania is a learning cluster that has developed around the Tamar Valley, which promotes problem-based learning to develop skills within the workplace.
Established through Bell Bay Aluminium, TasRail and CTP Engineering, the not-for-profit industry-based company offers programs such Lean Action Learning, Lean Leadership, Competitive Small Business, and Business Resource Efficiency.
Ms Cother said it was about learning by doing.
“Instead of having a set curriculum, we get employees to find the information they need in order to solve a specific problem,” she said.
“If there is information that is not required, then they don’t bother accessing it.
“Problem-centred learning and self-directed learning are ways in which we can move really fast and adapt to the changes which are happening.
“We want to give people the skills to learn so they don’t have to rely on the education system.”