Future of Work (part 2): What we actually Need - Actvli Responsible Consulting

Considerations

There is no such thing as the top job; it is all subjective and relevant to the person or persons doing the activity and what their drive or motivation is. For the sake of this study, we will assume there is such a thing. If you had a chance to read part 1 of this article, you would have noted that the list was unrealistically compressed to the following five:

Entertainment, Art and Content Creation
Metaverse and Game Designing
Health and Social Work
Information Security Analysts and Security Programmers
Hard Skills Jobs – Wood/Steel work, and plumbing

We all get stuck on the word “TOP jobs”, and well, carpentry and de-construction won’t have the top spot if salary and lack of hard skills are your goal. Then we realized for sure, the easiest industry and trend for TOP jobs will be anything and everything to do with the Metaverse; it’s like the term ‘Growth Hacking’ and ‘Start up’ and ‘Influencer’; where those were the big trends through each quarter of the 2010s so will the Metaverse be in the bulk of the 2020s if world war 3 doesn’t (or does) break out.

Finally, we decided we don’t want to follow the safest way and look at Metaverse jobs and instead focus on something other than technological disruption and trendy catch phrases. We have our powerpoint on tentative scenarios of the possible futures of organizations in Ecology and focus on Food Technology. Our reasoning is that if in the future most simple jobs will be done by AI – like self-driving trucks, accounting, data science, and potentially even surgical procedures, then regardless of all those things people will still need to survive on the basics. They will figure out what jobs they can do, no matter how mundane or simple. Even if universal basic income becomes a real possibility and people won’t be required to work, every one of them will still need to eat. And with the issue on monocropping, climate change, and threats to our ecology on the horizon, the most important thing to human survival will be sustenance. Food. Calories

Why would Ecology and Food technology be a possible Top job in the future? Let’s first start with the definition of Food Technology and Food Science.

Foodtech and Agritech Goodness

$\"\"$ Food technology[i] is the application of food science to the selection, preservation, processing, packaging, distribution, and use of safe food. Food Science[ii] Food science is an applied science that is associated with foods, and it is a combination of all of the above simple sciences. In this article from Frontiers in – Sustainable Food Systems, we can ascertain that as the world population increases, and food waste is not carefully controlled, we need to “develop a sustainable society allowing the regeneration of Earth\’s bio-resources”. “They include changing our eating habits and dietary choices, reducing food waste and loss, preserving biodiversity, reducing the prevalence of food-related diseases, and balancing the distribution of food worldwide. To promote these actions, new ingredients and technologies are necessary”

What would make it a plausible top job?

Just like Data Science and Machine Learning were the darlings of all ‘top jobs to have within 5 years’ predictions in 2014, we think it’s quite plausible that those data science jobs have predicted that we need to sustain our food development technology in the next 5-10 years for the sake of ensuring the earth can sustain us for another 50 years at least.

So we will build our scenarios from there. Top Jobs in Ecology and Food technology:

Logic: No Matter what the situation in the future when it comes to AI taking over jobs, or the divide between wealthy and financially challenged , human survival and sustenance is common.

Possible: As the world population increases, and food waste is not carefully controlled, and food production is increasing faster than farms can recover we need to “develop a sustainable society allowing the regeneration of Earth\’s bio-resources”. But it will be expensive at first.

Social Credibility: If it preserves and secures humanity’s future, there is nothing more socially credible. We’re not talking about 3-start Michelin restaurants. We are talking about caloric intake for sustenance and keeping people alive.

Interesting: imagine a steak as delicious as aged wagyu beef, but that didn’t come from a dead animal, nor made of vegetables and soy that require tremendous amounts of land and water, but instead grown in a lab harvested humanely from stem-cell samples of a bovine animal. we imagine that is quite interesting.

Let\’s pretend that we are an existing Food Manufacturer like Nestle, Danone, Kraft etc. here is a simplified version of our swot analysis we have done that they would have to consider:

Strengths

Unmatched research and development capability
Employee strength- 100k ++ people
Strong geographic presence,
Unrivaled product and brand portfolio
Strong supply chain network
Ownership of some of the most recognizable brands in the world

Weaknesses

Criticism over high water usage, selling contaminated food, anti-unionism, forced child labor and using other unethical practices
Contaminated food recalls
Tough competition means brand switching in the segment is quite high

Opportunities

Clear and accurate labelling indicating of any harmful products
Transparency in material sourcing
Acquisition of upcoming competitions
New products lines

Threats

Poor quality water and its scarcity
Increased competition in the food industry
Rise in cost of raw materials
Eurozone crisis

Wishes, hopes, and fears

Hit sales targets
Achieve year on year growth
Maintain dividend payments to shareholders
Contaminated food and waste

Certainties, values and tacit knowledge

Sustainably grow and delight consumers
Research-led innovations
Respect Diversity
Inspire to innovate

Uncertainties, and new Phenomena

Alternatives to Dairy
Real meat but not from animals
Vertical farming (E.g. in buildings)
Transportation

Scenarios.

Our forecasts are met, and our predictions and business targets are realized linearly.
Our competitions launches a new product and our progress derails our momentum.
We have some good quarters, and some bad quarters, positive EBIT, negative EBIT etc.
Our products sell through the rough supply situations and high prices and go against all odds in our current industry challenges
People revolt against our products for not being sustainable or within the current generational interests and we miss the boat.

So the real conclusion to our short and sweet assignment is advancement in the Food Industry, sustenance, calories, fueling the human battery, is where the future of jobs are the safest and thus most reliable.

[i] https://www.mituniversity.edu.in/difference-between-food-technology-and-food-science/

[ii] https://www.mituniversity.edu.in/difference-between-food-technology-and-food-science/