Am I a jobs expert? Nope, nope I am not.
Do I know more about the hottest careers than you? Not a chance. I mean, do I even have a career myself?
But I interviewed a bunch of HR reps and CEOs for a new Reader’s Digest article about the most in-demand job for 2020. What I found out is that it ain’t all tech (thank god), that actual human care and interaction is still going to be vital, and that soft skills will always matter. At least until we are overtaken by robot overlords.
One job that did not make the final cut, but that I believe will matter more than ever in 2020, is ideally actually more a vocation than a job:
Bookseller
According to publishers.org, book sales (most notably of non-fiction for both adults and young people) are on the rise in revenue and unit sales. Sure, this is still tilted toward online sales but (and there’s always a but), I believe that thanks to the unique, impassioned vision of new Barnes & Noble CEO (and Waterstones founder) James Daunt, physical bookstores are poised to become the kind of social infrastructure Americans need now more than ever.
I posit then that all of this positions the role of bookseller, through their knowledgeable recommendations of great literature like Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and passion for of-the-moment non-fiction books like Lauren Duca’s How to Start a Revolution: Young People and the Future of American Politics, as not only an in-demand job but also a vital vocation for election year 2020 and beyond.
Read up on the other in-demand jobs of 2020.
