Glassdoor’s chief economist, Dr. Andrew Chamberlain, revealed the five biggest jobs trends to watch out for in 2017 along with the five hiring trends that defined 2016. These insights come as part of a new Glassdoor Economic Research report, outlining Chamberlain’s 2017 predictions for the U.S. labour market including why automation will start to affect all jobs in 2017; why the gig economy has hit its limit; how data science will transform HR and recruiting and more.

“With record numbers of unfilled jobs, historically low unemployment and rising pay, America’s labour market is one of the strongest in decades. In many ways, 2016 was a landmark year for hiring,” said Chamberlain.

“However, technology and automation are changing the way we work forever, creating both opportunities and challenges for 2017 and beyond. In this environment, the future of jobs, employer branding and recruiting is on the top of mind for job seekers, employees and employers.”

Five Jobs Trends to Watch out for 2017:

• Data Science Will Transform HR into “People Science”: Data science has revolutionized nearly every industry – except HR and recruiting. In 2017, with easy and low-cost data analytics tools for employers, an industry that can benefit from data will finally start to catch up.
• The Gig Economy Will Reach its Limits: The gig economy has been big news over the last year and many expect it to pick up in 2017. However, though many jobs are ripe for gig workers, the majority of the workforce of 2017 and beyond is moving to higher-skilled roles that require creative judgement and long-term relationship building.
• Automation Will Impact All Jobs – Not Just Drivers: Jobs across all industries will begin to feel the effects of automation – especially truck drivers and taxi drivers in 2017. Automation is not going to destroy jobs, but will require workers to upskill and employers to focus on training programs to help employees develop new skills.
• Employers Will Take Action against the Gender Pay Gap: With the shift to pay transparency that unfolded in 2016, more employers will take action against the gender pay gap by doing analysis to understand the gap in their workforce and correct it.
• Employers Will Shift Away from Flashy Benefits Packages: Employers offering employees flashy benefits like free lunch and dog friendly workplaces – led in large part by the tech industry – have reached a tipping point.

See: 4 Key Trends on Employee Insights Expected to Dominate in 2017

In 2017, employers will pull back on flashy benefits because research shows more traditional benefits and health care coverage impact employee satisfaction most.

A growing number of health companies are hiring data scientists and economists to wrangle data from medical trials and treatments to improve care and slash costs. Similarly, financial companies are hiring software developers to build beautiful mobile apps and top-notch data security for online transactions.

Even retail giants like Walmart are major tech employers today, with their Silicon Valley research facility aimed at attracting machine-learning experts to help automate pricing and logistics.

The growing reach of mobile devices, cheap data storage, and innovations in machine learning will bring surprising changes to the way we work in coming years. 2017 looks to be the year when these big advances in automation will start changing the daily work of more professionals.

For job seekers, the key to staying on the profitable side of automation is ongoing skill building. Workers increasingly need to build skills that are complementary to technology — learning to run the machine, not doing the same work the machine automates.

As technology changes the landscape of work, workers will need to cultivate ongoing training, actively carving out time to re-sharpen skills on a permanent basis. Thus move toward ongoing “re-skilling” will take a big change in perspective for most white-collar workers.

Just as professionals in law and medicine are required to satisfy ongoing professional development goals, we will see more organisations setting aside time for re-skilling to stay on top of the latest workplace technology. As companies build these efforts directly into their professional development programs, that’s something we’re likely to see more of in 2017 and beyond.

Image credit: recruitingbrief.com

Also read: Top 11 Predictions Transforming the World of Work, HRM and People Practices in 2017