Dear Jonathan,

I’m worried about unpredictable changes coming to the jobs market. What can I do to prepare myself?

Jonathan answers: First, remember that changes in the world of work are not a new phenomenon. Historic changes often seem more benign than unknown future shifts. But it is useful to recognise that societies have already endured huge workforce disruption, and managed it, albeit at great cost to some people. Changes over the past few hundred years have been hugely transformative: less than 1 per cent of the population of England and Wales is now employed in agriculture, compared with 22 per cent more than 150 years ago, for example. Manufacturing jobs have also declined sharply, while service industry employment has increased.

What will change mean for me?

Meryl Streep’s explanation in The Devil Wears Prada of how the blue of a thoughtlessly selected jumper is the result of a complicated fashion industry innovation exemplifies how seemingly remote concepts filter to the mass market. In the same way, geopolitics and macroeconomic factors trickle through industry to affect the content and numbers of jobs you could work in.

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 2023 Future of Jobs report found macroeconomic factors would create jobs that supported the green transition and ESG (environmental, social, governance); made supply chains more localised; adapted to climate change; and embraced technological advances, for example as more consumers secure digital access.