by EMILY DERUY, The Atlantic
As more jobs become automated, companies are looking for employees who can essentially manage the machines doing the work. Where an employee used to be responsible for, say, feeding a panel onto a conveyor belt, now that employee is increasingly expected to work with coworkers to solve any problems that arise when the machine doing the job malfunctions. That requires good communication, critical-thinking, and time-management skills, and schools that used to focus strictly on technical instruction like welding now find themselves adapting curriculum to include more of these so-called “soft skills.” The result, proponents hope, is a set of adaptable graduates with the ability to succeed across a range of industries—meaning a set of graduates who won’t be left without options when the next recession hits.
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