Mark Cuban Predicts This Will Be the Most Important Job Skill in 10 Years

Advertising Week New York 2016 - Day 3
Getty Images | Slaven Vlasic

The job market is constantly shifting. STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) jobs have been steadily on the rise for several years now, but some industry experts say that may change soon.

In fact, billionaire software developer Mark Cuban says the best new skill for the job market in 10 years is something not so new at all: creative thinking.

Innumerable tech jobs are at risk of being automated, and Cuban says a majority of the workforce isn’t prepared. In a recent interview on Bloomberg TV, Cuban said that even in-demand coders aren’t safe from the STEM bubble and could soon be replaced.

“That might have been a great job a few years ago, but you might be out of work in five years,” Cuban told Bloomberg TV. Eventually, he says, computers will be able to write software and code better than human software developers and coders can.

Adobe

That’s why he says critical thinking and liberal arts degrees will make a huge comeback. You can’t automate good writing—Facebook has already proven that replacing journalists with an algorithm can have problematic results.

“I personally think there’s going to be a greater demand in 10 years for liberal arts majors than there were for programming majors and maybe even engineering,” Cuban told Bloomberg TV. “When the data is all being spit out for you, options are being spit out for you, you need a different perspective in order to have a different view of the data.”

And it’s not just Cuban who sees the writing on the wall. Industry body Nasscom said in its annual review that while the IT industry is still going strong in terms of growth, IT jobs only grew by 5 percent in the 2016-17 fiscal year. Nasscom is also predicting a 20-25 percent reduction in IT jobs over the next three years, due largely to automation and AI (artificial intelligence).

RELATED: Get Paid $10,000 A Month To Travel The World And Stay In Luxury Homes

In an interview with Business Insider, Shon Burton, CEO of HiringSolved, says college students need to be thinking ahead when it comes to the relationship between STEM jobs and AI.

“Students should be thinking, ‘In 20 years, where does the human add value?'” Burton told Business Insider. “They add value in places where we want to interface with humans, certainly they add value on the strategy and creativity level, and in any places where we can look out and say, ‘I don’t want to deal with a machine for that.'”

About the Author

Jessica Suss

An aspiring food and health writer, native Chicagoan, and nut butter enthusiast. Jessica is also the creator of BiteMeBlog, but don't call her a foodie More.

More to explore