Which businesses are under threat in 2015?

One key area is how advanced technology makes so many of us redundant and how that affects us.

Redundancy is a complicated concept for any industry. Fair Work Ombudsman highlights this.

"Redundancy happens when an employer either:
• Doesn't need an employee's job to be done by anyone, or
• Becomes insolvent or bankrupt.

Redundancy can happen when the business:
• Introduces new technology (e.g. The job can be done by a machine)
• Slows down due to lower sales or production
• Relocates interstate or overseas
• Restructures or reorganises because a merger or takeover happens."

Thankfully, there are ways to help mitigate redundancy and retrenchment, such as retrenchment cover and being able to claim unfair redundancy. However, in many cases, it's simply a factor of life that progress will dictate career irrelevance.

Consider, for example, why almost no one would recommend their child start a career as a VCR repair person.

This will, of course, differ from country to country, but in general, we can probably make justified speculations regardless.

For example, a study by CareerCast used the data from the United States Department of Labour to speculate on certain careers' future. Some might be unsurprising, but it remains important to highlight.

Feel like a job delivering the mail? Perhaps look at other career choices... (Image: Public Domain)

Mail carriers are some of the more obvious careers in danger. Of course, anything that relies on conveying data, content or information in a non-digital format has the high potential of being made redundant as an entire career. The same is being cast for newspaper journalists. Indeed, print newspapers in general are in decline.

Mary Kissel, in The Guardian, writes:

"Between 2005 and 2013, print advertising fell 50%, with much of that business migrating to online publications. Major outlets have slimmed down to a shadow of their former selves (Los Angeles Times) or disappeared altogether (Baltimore Examiner, Tucson Citizen, Kentucky Post, to name a few). There's even a website to document the decay: newspaperdeathwatch.com."

Facing decline

Other industries dependent on physical media, like music stores, are facing the same problem:

More people may be listening to music, but... (Image: Public Domain)

"By 2016, record stores sales are projected to drop another 77.4%, according to The Wall Street Journal. Local music shops and large national chains will not fare well.

In 2011, digital music sales surged 8% globally, accounting for $5.2bn in legal downloads. More people may be listening to music, but physical album sales will continue to decline."

Indeed, much of career erasure can be pinned to the ease-of-use and ease-of-access of Internet services: hence the decline of careers like travel agents (you can book yourself) or tax examiner.

The future careers are those that either are directly involved or can be heavily complemented - not replaced - by digital media.