Job market 2020 and beyond.

Byline: Fatima Irshad Hashmi

The way we work is changing dramatically,as we move into 2020. We are seeing a greater focus on equal rights for all employees, flexible and considerate schedules and company structures, and a far greater emphasis on accountability around poor working conditions.

In 2020 and beyond, the intense scrutiny that businesses are facing will certainly lead us to a more positive and productive future of work. The future of work is a somewhat misleading phrase. Referring to a way of working that is fundamentally different from traditional 9 to 5, the 'future' of work is already here and significantly changing how people think about jobs and about how their time is valued. It is useful to look at how far we've come in terms of employment and workers' rights, and how far we still need to go to create the 'future of work' that many envisage.

As we move into 2020, here are a few predictions on the next developments in employment and work, and why 'the future of work' might not be quite.

Why graduates earn more. Obviously they are much more likely to be protected from the ravages of automation than lower-skilled workers. To protect oneself, qualifications matter more than ever.

The relationship between education and employment is self-reinforcing. Employers need to make decent decisions about whom to hire. And what better mark of quality than a degree certificate from a university they can trust, an institution which has three or four years' experience in training and marking an applicant whose CV companies might scan for three or four seconds?

But here's the strange thing. This relationship is breaking down. Employers consistently say they can't find the right employees. Graduates, they say, don't have the right skills, soft and hard. Educational institutions are pumping out more and more students holding framed certificates, and yet those certificates mean less and less.

The world of work is shattered irreversibly by digital technologies, the old self-reinforcing relationship between employment and education increasingly resembles a dance of death. It is a strange partnership in which failing companies and doomed workers pretend that qualifications matter more than skills. Empathetically, education is a one-off for the young, not lifelong. Moreover learning is monolithic not personalized and lengthy not bite-sized.

The "knowledge" which once the preserve of the few, is now universally accessible and that what matters is not...