Hays : Cutting-edge technology roles predicted to be hot jobs in 2017 with growing momentum for the Olympics

Hays, the world's leading recruiting experts in qualified, professional and skilled people, announces the top five roles that are expected to be in growing demand in Japan's jobs market in 2017.

Top 5 jobs to be in demand in 2017

1. Bilingual customer support professionals

There is a growing excitement in Japan surrounding the upcoming Tokyo Olympics and the boost to the travel and the tourism industries that it is expected to bring. With the games a mere three years away, demand for bilingual customer service professionals in these industries is expected to grow significantly in 2017.

2. Industrial Internet engineers

IoT for the manufacturing industry, the 'Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) ' deals with the connection of industrial machines to the internet to analyse big data. As Industrial Internet engineers are required to have expertise in both machinery and data science, we expect to see considerable talent mismatch due to the dramatic shortfall between the number of highly skilled professionals and the high demand for positions to be filled.

3. Artificial Intelligence (AI) / Robotics Engineers

In order to drive development in line with their US and European headquarters, multinational companies with bases in Japan are on the lookout for high-level talent in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence. Demand for engineers and researchers is likely to rise dramatically.

4. Driverless technology engineers

A bitter talent war over highly-skilled candidates is anticipated in the automotive industry as the sector sees increasingly fierce competition over the development of automated driving and related cutting edge technologies.

5. Data scientists

As companies in a wide array of industries increasingly promote the use of big data, the demand for data scientists who are able to analyse and extract information from the vast swathes of information collected is growing. Despite the soaring demand, due to the diverse skills sets candidates are required to have, such as a strong background in statistics, computer science and business skills, the talent pool is desperately small - a trend predicted to continue in 2017.

Alongside the continued advancement of technologies and the persistent spread of AI, while some sectors have seen job demands fade away, many new roles have been created. Due to this recent switch in focus and the alacrity of the technological advancement, in Japan, workforce skills sets are struggling to keep up. According to the Hays Global Skills Index, a study of labor supply and demand efficiency conducted by Hays for 33 countries, talent mismatch (the gap between the skills that companies are targeting and the skills that people have) in Japan is amongst the worst in the world. Based on this research, Hays recommends that employers strengthen initiatives to develop talent while candidates find ways to continually upskill to keep up with current and future skills that will be in demand by companies.

Hays, the world's leading recruiting experts in qualified, professional and skilled people.