Macroeconomic Trends- A New Standard of Skills

In recent history, programming has been considered a skill only necessary for the most brilliant computer engineers. However, recently, programming has slowly emerged as a necessary skill in nearly every sector. This new demand for programming is largely due to the new shift to an online-based economy and the need to integrate and work together with the changing technologies. These new technologies are coming sooner than realized and with them is going to be a shift in the necessary skills. Rather than these new technologies eliminating jobs, they open opportunities for new jobs requiring programming skills. One company at the forefront of the new groundbreaking technology is a British company, Ocado. Ocado operates as a technology manufacturer for what they call CFCs (customer fulfillment centers) which are fully robotically operated warehouses. What’s significant about Ocado is that it seemingly eliminates the need for warehouse workers, which makes up about 1 million jobs in the U.S. When a current Ocado warehouse worker was asked about this he said: “We need to adapt and develop the skills needed to manage these robots.” This new change in the skillset is not specific to labor-intensive jobs. In fact, Wall Street who’s historically one of the least technologically adept industries is beginning to recruit a new wave of hybrid bankers or TWC (traders who can code). Banks such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are rapidly recruiting these bankers. In fact JP Morgan is beginning to require programming skills for all bankers. Mary Callahan Erdoes, head of JP Morgan asset management stated in an interview, "Coding is not for just tech people, it is for anyone who wants to run a competitive company in the 21st century."