Will your Cyprus job last five years?

‘Our island’s accountants, paralegals, and civil service may well go the same way as oil sellers, calico printers and cameleers!’

Two hundred years ago, one job in Cyprus outnumbered all others – by miles!

According to the Ottoman Property Survey of 1832, 50 people were registered as merchants, 36 were cobblers, and 26 gave their profession as blacksmith. Another 26 were shepherds, and the island boasted 19 barbers, 12 carpenters, and 25 consuls.

Back then, the island had eight bootmakers (apparently different from cobblers), 12 dyers (of whom half specialised in red dye), and five oil sellers. As well as a number of professionals in jobs we might not recognise today: six quilt-makers, three cameleers, and one solitary well-builder (no doubt overworked!).

But no job came close in number to priests. In the 1800s, 562 people were registered as either a papaz, a papa, or a papas!

“But during the Ottoman period, priests weren’t just priests!” reveals Antigone Heraclidou, a historian at the CYENS Centre of Excellence. “They were the island’s most highly educated people – if you were smart and you didn’t want to work on the land, you went into the church. Once there, you’d take on any manner of positions: you’d be part of the village council, you’d read and write for your community, and you might assist with tax collection.”

The church, says Antigone, was also instrumental in building and staffing the schools of the time. “So anyone giving their profession as ‘priest’ would also be taking on those roles as well as all sorts of others.”

Almost 200 years on, Cyprus has far fewer priests in comparison to the size of our population. (Though, notably, the most lawyers per capita in Europe!) But then our jobs have changed a great deal over the centuries…

Today, we’d be confused by someone who claimed to be a ‘salt-seller’, an ‘interpreter of the palace’, or ‘calico printer’. And undoubtedly our ancestors would have trouble understanding taxi drivers, ac repairmen and women, or influencers!

Even within the last few decades, jobs have changed a great deal. While travel agents and bank tellers are fast disappearing, app developers and renewable energy engineers didn’t exist 20 years ago. And the recently released Future of Jobs Report suggests that never has the job market faced such rapid change.

Today, the fastest-growing and most in-demand jobs include AI and machine learning, big data, and digital transformation specialists, as well as UI/UX designers, and business intelligence analysts – jobs that might well have confused our forebears.

The green transition is creating a huge demand for sustainability specialists and renewable energy engineers. And in advanced manufacturing we’re seeing a need for more robotics and system engineers.

Everything, apparently, is going digital and automated. And that means we’ll be seeing 170 million new jobs created in the next five or so years. Although, at the same time, 92 million jobs will disappear…

While the Report suggests that jobs requiring the human touch (think food, leisure, healthcare and education) will remain relatively safe, others will be hard hit. If your role involves tasks that rely on repetition and routine, automation and AI may be coming for you.

Clerical and secretarial jobs will take the hardest hit; thanks to automation and advanced software, administrative assistants, executive secretaries, and data entry clerks are predicted to go the way of the island’s cameleers! The same goes for customer-facing positions such as bank tellers, postal service clerks, cashiers and telemarketers.

Even creative professions such as graphic design, video editing, and copywriting are seeing a downturn due to the widespread availability of AI tools, pre-made templates, and user-friendly editing platforms.

So what does this all mean for Cyprus?

Well, on this island, we’ll probably survive – as long as we adapt! Services, business and finance (all of which are high on the list of increasing jobs globally) dominate employment in Cyprus. And tourism – well, robots aren’t yet mainstream enough to cook five-star meals or take tourists round Troodos.

However, the Report does warn that by 2030, 29 per cent of us will have to upskill in our current roles, while 19 per cent must be reskilled within their current job.  

“The entire world is changing,” says Katerina Andreou, the founder of recruitment agency HR Innovate. “And in Cyprus, as a small economy, we see it all play out on a smaller, sharper scale.

“Nobody can afford to be complacent in their job anymore. What you’ve been doing for three decades, the skills you’ve been using day in and day out – they’re probably going to be obsolete very soon, overtaken by automation and AI and tech.”

Within a couple of years, every single job will have an element of AI, she adds. Farmers are already using drones to monitor crops and AI to predict yields; cashiers now have to understand how to work automated checkouts; delivery drivers are using route optimisation software, supported by AI that predicts traffic patterns and weather conditions.

The bottom line? Any of the island’s jobs that can be automated – such as accountancy, data entry, or basic legal work – will face major changes in the next five years. And if your role relies on repetitive tasks, it’s time to adapt!

“If you’re not learning, you’re falling behind,” warns Katerina. “And that’s a dangerous place to be in today’s world – especially in a small, dynamic economy like Cyprus. The jobs of the future are tech-based, and if you want stability, you have to be willing to change – and change quickly! 30 years of experience won’t matter if you’re not ready to learn something new.”

Once upon a time, you followed your father into the family shop, became a farmer, or joined the public service – and that was it for the next 50 odd years.

“But now,” says Katerina, “we’re seeing sweeping change. Even Cyprus, which can be slow to adjust to modern realities, will have to adapt – and sooner rather than later! Our island’s accountants, paralegals, and civil service may well go the same way as oil sellers, calico printers, and cameleers.

“The future,” she concludes, “belongs to the adaptable, not the complacent. There’s no such thing as a job for life anymore.”