It’s no secret that many lower end jobs have disappeared in industrialized countries the past 50 years. They are the type of jobs you could do with little or no training. Hence pay tended to be low as well. Those jobs gave people a foothold in the economy, and hopefully a springboard to other positions with companies that paid more over the course of a career.
In the blue collar realm, competition, technology and efficiencies began eroding many of those jobs. The past 15 or maybe even 20 years or so, that erosion has also hit many white collar positions. If you are over the age of 55, it’s difficult to not know someone whose job has been outsourced, cut or combined with some other position to make an employee obsolete.
Again, there are many factors also affecting these white collar positions, often under the guise of “productivity” or “becoming more efficient,” which essentially means funneling pay and profits up to those higher on the food chain and taking it away from people in the middle. There’s something desperately wrong here. I wish I had a solution.
These forces have deeply affected me and my family the past 8 years. I don’t place any blame. There are circumstances beyond my control. As a writer though, in a field that is notoriously underpaid and becoming even more underpaid as others presume that “anybody can write,” it’s incumbent on me to attempt to capture and understand some of these currents. If we can do that as a society or country, we’ve taken the first step to finding ways that help more people find gainful employment that allows them to pay bills, put food on the table, clothes on their back and a roof over their heads.
Much of the difficulty, it seems to me, in searching for reasonably paid employment is in closing the disconnect between the skills people have and the positions available in the economy. Our world and the technology we use in it are much more complex than 40 years ago. You need a higher degree of training just to get started in a job. And not everyone has that.
Junior colleges and high schools are primed to step into this area if we choose to establish curriculums that prepare the next generation for these types of more highly technical positions. Students and younger adults must also understand where those jobs are available. Based on Internet research, there are almost 100,000 good paying welding positions available in the U.S., and you can make $90,000 per year. People need to train for those positions though and be willing to move to where the jobs are offered. That’s a challenge for businesses and the individuals searching for a job.
Here’s an example: There’s an online transcription service that is fully automated. You can submit a 30 minute audio clip and in less than an hour, you get back a verbatim word document of the audio for $15/hour. Individuals currently providing that service, often flawlessly, fast and fantastic, charging $40/hour. Which way do you think companies will go on this one? Bye bye to hiring the individual and hello to hiring the machine.
Yes, something is terribly wrong here. We continue down the path of displacement. Some jobs go away and some are created. It’s hard to stay ahead of the wave, but education is the best track for everyone to understand the trends, learn what’s next in the economy and step up to the plate. Otherwise, it’s extra innings when you hoped you’d be retired.
In the blue collar realm, competition, technology and efficiencies began eroding many of those jobs. The past 15 or maybe even 20 years or so, that erosion has also hit many white collar positions. If you are over the age of 55, it’s difficult to not know someone whose job has been outsourced, cut or combined with some other position to make an employee obsolete.
Again, there are many factors also affecting these white collar positions, often under the guise of “productivity” or “becoming more efficient,” which essentially means funneling pay and profits up to those higher on the food chain and taking it away from people in the middle. There’s something desperately wrong here. I wish I had a solution.
These forces have deeply affected me and my family the past 8 years. I don’t place any blame. There are circumstances beyond my control. As a writer though, in a field that is notoriously underpaid and becoming even more underpaid as others presume that “anybody can write,” it’s incumbent on me to attempt to capture and understand some of these currents. If we can do that as a society or country, we’ve taken the first step to finding ways that help more people find gainful employment that allows them to pay bills, put food on the table, clothes on their back and a roof over their heads.
Much of the difficulty, it seems to me, in searching for reasonably paid employment is in closing the disconnect between the skills people have and the positions available in the economy. Our world and the technology we use in it are much more complex than 40 years ago. You need a higher degree of training just to get started in a job. And not everyone has that.
Junior colleges and high schools are primed to step into this area if we choose to establish curriculums that prepare the next generation for these types of more highly technical positions. Students and younger adults must also understand where those jobs are available. Based on Internet research, there are almost 100,000 good paying welding positions available in the U.S., and you can make $90,000 per year. People need to train for those positions though and be willing to move to where the jobs are offered. That’s a challenge for businesses and the individuals searching for a job.
Here’s an example: There’s an online transcription service that is fully automated. You can submit a 30 minute audio clip and in less than an hour, you get back a verbatim word document of the audio for $15/hour. Individuals currently providing that service, often flawlessly, fast and fantastic, charging $40/hour. Which way do you think companies will go on this one? Bye bye to hiring the individual and hello to hiring the machine.
Yes, something is terribly wrong here. We continue down the path of displacement. Some jobs go away and some are created. It’s hard to stay ahead of the wave, but education is the best track for everyone to understand the trends, learn what’s next in the economy and step up to the plate. Otherwise, it’s extra innings when you hoped you’d be retired.
