From Manufacturer to Coder: How is the United States preparing its workforce for the professions of the Future?

A well-known study by Oxford professors estimates that in one or two decades, half of the number of U.S. jobs will become automated. The projections for job computerization have moved beyond production occupations and have entered service and other non-routine jobs that required cognitive tasks. Some have even claimed that, in the future, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will do everything better than humans. With this prospect for the U.S., the audience has turned to the education sector to inquire how it is preparing its workforce for the jobs that students will hold in the future. This is a difficult task, when it is uncertain what professions, jobs, or even skills will be needed. Although projections changed in terms of what skills will be necessary for the future, it seems that digital literacy will become more important, that teachers want to be trained in it, and that it will improve business. This motivates the question of what are public and private initiatives doing to embed digital literacy in schools and training programs. Although the push for apprenticeships of the current administration might seem troublesome for preparing its labor force for the future—if these are mostly in the manufacturing sector—another public-sector initiative, the 2016 National Education Technology Plan, has yielded positive results in digitalizing more classrooms and teaching, having students become comfortable with the use of technology. Furthermore, there is a predicted rise in private sector education-technology investment, which will give more opportunities for students to develop digital literacy