“Hello World!” is the title of the sample blog post I got when installing WordPress to the ponderer.io domain. The name of this template is chosen aptly as “Hello World!” also is the name of the program which you almost surely will learn to write when starting a programming language (C, C++, Python, R, etc.). This is more a nerdy tradition than providing the best pedagogical value for learning. But tradition is tradition and quite sticky as we will see below.

I first wanted to delete this post but then realised that “Hello World!” actually connects to several big discussions in the labour market, which themselves reflect broader currents and challenges which many, if not all, societies are facing or will be facing at some point.

Being able to have a computer program output “Hello World!” to the screen (Yes, that’s the only thing this program is supposed to do!) and to do a bit more sophisticated things with code, like setting up a blockchain to name a timely example, puts you on fairly high level in terms of technical skills in the job market. Coding belongs to computer science (of course not only there), which itself belongs to the group of STEM subjects, broadly fields related to “hard” sciences (e.g. physics), technology, engineering and math.

STEM subjects are closely related to current technological, economic and societal trends, like the rise of portable devices, digital technology, social media, virtual spaces, artificial intelligence, etc. All big keywords nowadays which means that STEM skills command a pay premium in the labour market. STEM subjects also are very much male dominated, and there are a lot of initiatives to get more women there to help closing the gender pay gap.

While STEM subjects are important as is, at least equally, closing the gender pay gap, there is what I call a complimentary side in terms of skills and discrepancies in the labour market, and which is much less talked about. The compliment to STEM is HEAL. HEAL subjects are related to health, education, administration and literacy. HEAL jobs belong to vast sectors in the economy and are certain to grow in the future. Think for example of the rising health care and caring needs of an aging population. Or the ever growing importance of education to succeed in the job market (btw, not necessarily tertiary education!).

This means that there will be more demand for HEAL skills. This is very likely to happen irrespective of current efforts in automation (STEM!). For example, tasks like caring are just notoriously complex from a robotics perspective. At the same time many non-STEM or non-HEAL jobs, like manual, but also cognitive, routine tasks are at much greater risk of automation and people working in related fields are of greater risk of pay pressure and outright job loss.

Now, HEAL jobs, like nursing, are dominated by a female workforce. That is, we have the opposite gender imbalance as we have for STEM. Neither can’t be good. While there are a lot of initiatives to bring women into STEM, there are far far fewer to bring men into HEAL. However, this would have substantial benefits not only for addressing acute shortages in the labour market, but also for more “equal perceptions” in society.

For example, there are projected global shortfalls of labour in health care and a major reason why many men do not want to work there, or other HEAL fields, is that these jobs are perceived as being for women, and as such do not align with traditional (sticky!) perceptions of masculinity, or gender roles more broadly. This means that concerted efforts for gender balance across all sectors will help to future-proof societies but also make them more liveable independent who you are and what you do.