Data science skills seen critical to future-proofing jobs — DoLE

by Gillian M. Cortez, BusinessWorld, Jan 2, 2019

THE labor department said equipping workers with data sciences and analytics (DSA) skills will be a good way of preparing enterprises for eventual automation, according to the findings of the JobsFit 2022 report prepared by one of its agencies.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) and the Bureau of Local Employment (BLE) said the report also identified 13 occupations that are in demand or hard to fill, many of which are new job descriptions.

“Based on the national and regional stakeholders’ consultations, 13 occupations are identified as emerging jobs. It can be observed that a majority of the occupations belong to the IT-BPM sector,” the JobsFit report said.

These occupations are Business Process Analyst, Data Scientist, Design Engineer, Electronic Mail and Chat Support Agent, Evisceration Processor, Genomicist, Hair Transplant Technician, Mobile App Developer, Nanotechnologist, Order Tracker/Developer, Search Engine Optimization Analyst, Social Media Analyst, and Transport Network Vehicle Driver.

JobsFit also said DSA competencies are recommended by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) bloc especially with the emergence of new occupations.

“By identifying DSA competencies required by employers in a data-driven world, economies will be equipped to educate their work force — preparing students and workers for the yet-to-be-defined jobs of tomorrow and helping economies to fulfill their economic potential,” the report said.

The recommended APEC DSA competencies are the following: Operational Analytics; Data Visualization and presentation; Data Management and Governance; Domain Knowledge and Application; Statistical Techniques; Computing; Data Analytics and Algorithms; Research Methods; and Data Science Engineering Principles, among others.

“DSA-enabled knowledge workers will have skills not easily replaced by automation; instead they will be better prepared to unlock the promise and potential of data and all the technologies that depend on it,” the JobsFit report added. —