The Future of Work May Value Human Skills More Than Ever

One of my formative memories from Target was a new father, whose wife was going to the hospital to give birth, leaving work. Everyone was so excited. The manager of the team “gifted” him the next day (a Friday) to be with his family. 

It made me question whether this was how I wanted to live my life. 

One recent article in Business Insider describes how Zoom reduced parental leave from 24 to 18 weeks for birthing parents and from 16 to 10 weeks for non-birthing parents. Most people would be thrilled with 18 weeks and 10 weeks of paid leave. But the internet is on fire! 

Seven companies represent ~60% in U.S. GDP market value, but only 1% of Americans work in these elite coastal jobs. 

In 2015, after a particularly damaging New York Times article on Amazon’s culture, Amazon instituted paid maternity and paternity leave. When our two kids were born, I took 6 weeks of leave for each of them, up from my expectation of 0 weeks. I felt like a king! 

Tech corporations reset the bar in their war for talent. It started with developers - free lunches, massages, flexible work environments. This fueled us through the mobile tech boom of the 2010’s. Then during COVID, all types of corporate employees were at a premium. Benefits rained down. That bubble burst around 2023. 

My first job at Target was a business analyst. There were hundreds of us, fresh out of college, deciding how much inventory to buy and where to allocate it. Claude could replace that whole team tomorrow. Middle managers are less necessary, and fewer employees will be coming up the ranks with hands-on knowledge - making a corporation ten years from now unrecognizable today. 

40% of Americans work at a small business, and 16% work in the caregiving economy. The technology that displaces big tech workers will actually empower small business employees. They will be the biggest winners of the AI age. 

Small businesses are good at building meaningful customer relationships and iterating quickly. Now they have the operational muscle of big business. They can do more with less, and repurpose their humans to be more human. The future of work may reward human connection, adaptability, and hands-on skills far more than many of the traditional corporate pathways we spent decades optimizing for.

It’s counterintuitive, as a child of the ‘90s, to think about directing my children into the trades. Electricians, plumbers or other skilled trades will become the software developers of the 2010s.

That’s exactly what I'll be doing, and it’s what most of our K-12 schooling system is missing. 

Nobody wants a robot caregiver, salesperson, or teacher. The ability to build a meaningful relationship with another human being is about to become the most valuable skill in the economy. We just spent thirty years calling it unskilled work.