Announcing the Cognizant Jobs of the Future Index

The digital revolution is changing the course of the future of work for the 160 million people in today’s US labor force. New technologies and tools are transforming the workplace, eliminating some jobs, reinventing others, and creating new jobs of the future. But these dramatic shifts are also making it more difficult to identify which jobs will grow in the future and what these new roles will entail. Traditional ways of thinking about job demand are becoming less effective. We need new ways to analyze workforce trends and patterns to both companies and job seekers prepare for the future. The Cognizant Jobs of the Future Index will allow us to test and/or prove our hypotheses about what the jobs of the future will look like, how they are evolving, and what will be required of employees and employers alike.

That is why we created the Cognizant Jobs of the Future Index. This ground-breaking Index explores the trends and patterns in a set of fifty jobs—45 actual or “real” jobs, along with 5 “proxy” jobs developed from Cognizant’s 21 Jobs of the Future and the 21 More Jobs of the Future. With analytical support from economists at ESI Thoughtlab, an economic research firm, we selected jobs that shared several characteristics:

• First, they are occupations that have been or are expected to grow, particularly when we take into consideration rising digitization of work and the workplace, such as software or mobile app developers. 
• Second, they are occupations that are integral to industries that are expected to grow or transform in the coming decades. These occupations could include newly defined or traditional jobs in industries that are being changed by technology or expanding rapidly to meet societal needs. 
• Finally, we applied a digital filter to these jobs. Using the proprietary Burning Glass database of job openings, we can search for and identify jobs that require digital technology skills on top of traditional skills requirements—meaning that the job description for the posting mentions or requires technological capabilities as a requirement for employment. That allows us to look at jobs that are being enhanced or transformed to reflect the digital revolution in the workplace, and to track trends in those specific jobs. In future posts, we will compare some of those more traditional jobs with their counterpart digital version, to see if differences in demand are emerging. 

Tracking Demand for Jobs of the Future

With all of that as the backdrop, the Index is a real-time demand tracking instrument – allowing us to identify shifts and changes in employer demand for these jobs. The 50 jobs we are tracking in the CJoF Index represent about 5% of the total jobs tracked by Burning Glass in the most recent quarter. What we will be looking for as we track these jobs over future quarters is how the Index is changing. 

• Which jobs are growing faster than the other jobs in the Index? 
• Which job families—our 8 groups of jobs with common characteristics such as industry sector or skills requirements—are growing faster than either the Index or the overall Burning Glass database? 
• Are some jobs shrinking, meaning that either those jobs are shrinking or perhaps that those jobs are shifting to either other occupations or even overseas? 
• Are there geographic location patterns, such as more of certain occupations in urban areas versus rural areas? 

The index is not about predicting the future. Rather, it is a tool that allows us to look at trends like one we see in this first edition, where jobs in the “Work Culture” family have grown by 65% since the starting point of the Index, the 2nd fastest growth rate for any of our families. That trend leads us naturally to some questions. Why are occupations like Training and Development Specialist, I/O Psychologist and Career Counselor growing faster than seemingly more tech-oriented occupations? Why might there be more demand for technically oriented career counselors? Is the growth due to the rise of online job postings, or is it the need for career counselors to be well-versed in the technologies and new jobs that they are connecting and training their clients for? What we may be seeing is that for companies with changing expectations and ways in which employees are expected to work, having tech savvy career counselors and I/O psychologists can be an investment in the future of their workplace. And it may sound counterintuitive, but in a world of more pervasive technology, activities that humans do well will become even more important. In the future, work will change but won’t go. Once you answer the question of what to do when machines do everything, the next logical question is: “OK, what exactly are the numerous jobs that will come to pass?

What’s Next

So, join us as we begin this journey through the Cognizant Jobs of the Future Index. Every quarter we will update the index and identify highlights and interesting insights from the data we are seeing. In addition, we encourage you to explore our interactive dashboard—there you can look at the overall index, segments of the index like our eight job families, or even look more closely at the trends within any one of the jobs included in the index. We hope the Index is useful as you try to understand what is going on in the job market and what you as a future employee or employer need to do to remain competitive. We look forward to engaging you in a conversation about the jobs of the future and hearing your viewpoints on what is happening and why.

The Cognizant Jobs of the Future Index

The rapid rise of technology is causing US companies to rethink jobs for the future of work. To benchmark these emerging jobs, we have created the Cognizant Jobs of the Future Index? (CJoF Index). This quarterly index measures the change in demand for a set of 50 jobs of the future, 45 actual jobs and five proxy ones. It also includes eight additional sub-indices that represent families of similar jobs. (Click to see more about these jobs). The CJoF Index score represents the sum of the current quarterly total of US job openings divided by the quarterly total of US job openings in the 3rd quarter of 2016 (the base year for the Index). The index was developed by the Cognizant Center for the Future of Work, together with ESI ThoughtLab, an economic research firm. 

Introduction

The rapid rise of technology is transforming the future of work in the US. Companies are not only rethinking traditional jobs through a digital lens, but also inventing new jobs that will be important in the future. To track the growth in these future jobs, Cognizant teamed up with ESI ThoughtLab, a leading economic research firm, to create the Cognizant Jobs of the Future Index? (CJoF Index).

This quarterly index measures the change in demand for a set of 50 jobs of the future identified through analysis conducted by the Cognizant Center for the Future of Work and ESI ThoughtLab. ESI ThoughtLab’s senior economists constructed the analytical framework for the index, and Burning Glass, a provider of workforce analytics, provided the current and historical data on job openings.

The CJoF Index score represents the sum of the current quarterly total of US job openings divided by the quarterly total of US job openings in the 3rd quarter of 2016 (the base year for the Index). In addition to the composite score of 50 jobs of the future, the index includes eight additional sub-indices that represent families of similar jobs, including Algorithmic, Automation, and Artificial Intelligence; Customer Experience (CX); Environmental; Fitness and Wellness; Health Care (HC); Legal and Financial Services; Transportation; and Work Culture. The index allows the user to drill down into comparative trends for each of the underlying occupations.

The CJoF Index, which is updated quarterly, offers the user insights into current and historical trends. ESI ThoughtLab economists monitor and periodically update the data as Burning Glass adds or subtracts from its real-time list of occupations. 

Index data and composition

The CJoF Index draws on Burning Glass’s highly respected Job Insight portal. Burning Glass obtains its data from online sources of job openings, both aggregators of job openings (sites like Indeed, LinkedIn, and ZipRecruiter, along with many others) and primary sources (company websites). Burning Glass uses an extensive “de-duplication” algorithm to ensure each job opening is counted only once. 

Each quarter, ESI ThoughtLab economists input the relevant data on job openings in 50 occupations to create the latest index, aggregating the totals for the full CJoF index and the various sub-indices. All totals are indexed against the 2016 third quarter totals (base quarter) to create the index score for each job, the full CJoF Index, and the various sub-indices. 

To ensure these openings represent jobs of the future, the team applies a filter to identify job openings requiring digital capabilities. Due to the use of the digital filter, each of the occupations represented in the Index is a subset of the total number of openings for that specific occupation. The CJoF Index represents about 5% of the total openings tracked by Burning Glass. 

The data included in the Index does not measure actual jobs, but rather the number of posted job openings. As such, it serves as a proxy for job demand, and allows the user to better understand the trends and patterns in the labor market and the historical, current, and potential demand for jobs. The data used in the Index is influenced by the availability and prevalence of online job offerings, and the ability of Burning Glass to access those openings and scrub them for duplications. The index measures US domestic job openings and is not designed to directly inform users of potential outsourcing of employment opportunities or shifts of existing staff within companies. 

On a regular basis, Burning Glass adjusts the mix of occupations included in its data set, based on changes in the marketplace and job postings. In some cases, occupations may be split, combined, or eliminated. Cognizant and ESI ThoughtLab review the index composition regularly and may make changes and adjustments if needed. This may alter some reported data, as Burning Glass will go back and adjust the totals for previous time periods to reflect the change. 

Burning Glass Labor Insight? Real-time Labor Market Information

The index draws its job openings data from Burning Glass Technologies’ Labor Insight? Real-time Labor Market Information tool. Burning Glass was founded in 1999 with the goal of developing the world’s leading technologies for matching people with jobs. Its technologies deliver intuitive insight across a range of functions, including workforce and economic development and career exploration and counseling, as well as job matching. Its pioneering solutions leverage a deep understanding of people and their careers in order to deliver superior workforce and marketplace insight. Burning Glass’s patented artificial intelligence engine learns from actual career patterns as observed in both structured and natural language contexts in order to deliver an intuitive, real-time awareness of how and when people move from job to job and of the kinds of skills and experiences that lead to successful placement.

Selection criteria

We identified the occupations for inclusion in the Cognizant Jobs of the Future Index through a selection process that included quantitative analysis of the Burning Glass data by ESI ThoughtLab, combined with expert opinion from the Cognizant Center for the Future of Work. We selected 45 occupations for inclusion in the CJoF, all representing jobs that the team identified as important for the future US workforce. The selection process included a mix of both objective data analysis and subjective insight based upon an understanding of the emerging job markets by both the Cognizant and ESI Thoughtlab teams. 

In addition to the 45 actual occupations, we created five proxy jobs to represent potential new occupations identified in the Center for the Future of Work’s recent publication, 21 Jobs of the Future and 21 More Jobs of the Future. For these proxy jobs, we identified potential occupations for each proxy based upon the Cognizant job description and the current occupations likely to evolve into, or merge with, that new occupation. For each proxy job, Cognizant and ESI ThoughtLab applied weights of either 15%, 35%, or 50% to component occupations to reflect their impact on the proxy job. To avoid double-counting, all the occupations included in the proxy jobs were excluded from the remainder of the Index. The table below specifies each proxy job and its occupation components.

Our team divided the index into eight job families, consisting of groupings of occupations by skills and function (see table below). These groupings allow for comparison of individual jobs to their job families, as well as between and among job families.

Index team and responsibilities

The Cognizant Jobs of the Future Index was created by The Cognizant Center for the Future of Work in collaboration with ESI ThoughtLab. The Cognizant team included Ben Pring, vice president and Co-founder of the Center and Managing Director, and Rob Brown, assistant vice president. The ESI ThoughtLab team included Lou Celi, chief executive, Dr. Daniel Miles, chief economist, Steve Wray, director of regional economics and labor, and Rebecca DeJoseph, senior economist.

The Cognizant Center for the Future of Work conceived of the index and was responsible for final selection of the occupations included in the index, the design of the proxy jobs, and the identification of the Job Families. Cognizant decides on the occupations included in the index and any future adjustments to the Index.

ESI ThoughtLab is responsible for managing the data and maintaining the analytical platform for the index. ESI ThoughtLab maintains quality control over the index, implements any changes to the index as directed by Cognizant, and provides data analysis to support Cognizant’s thought leadership efforts.

Copyright

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