Topic Tuesday #43 2013/05/14 - "Will Work For Bandwidth"
I'm going to jump right in here. How hard was it to find your last job? Was it easy? Was it a sure thing, because you knew an insider that owed your family a favor or something? I know, and have, some pretty amusing stories, but I'm not here to talk about those (feel free and leave a comment, because I love them). Bernie Sanders posted a story that struck a cord with me today. As I am watching businesses "restructure" and executives equip their golden parachutes, I overlooked those just coming into the job market. Here'swhat Bernie's newsletter said:
"The unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year old workers was 16.2 percent in April. That’s more than double the national rate of unemployment. For teenagers, the overall unemployment rate is 25.1 percent. For black teens the number is a distressing 43.1 percent. The United States has surpassed much of Europe in the percentage of young adults without jobs, according to The New York Times. What has Congress done? It cut $1 billion from youth jobs programs over the past decade. Bernie is working on legislation to change that." Sourced from research from "Center for American Progress"
What does this mean? Beyond the simple political infighting and good ol boy politicizing? I have seen many metrics on jobless, and what demographics have what availability and all that. What intrigues me, and pesters me in the back of my head, is that we may have a simple supply and demand problem. Since the on set of the cotton gin, the workforce required to do certain jobs is on the decline. The machines are more efficient, that's just how it is, and I dig that. Same thing with the old sweat shops, and assembly plants. Automation. So jobs that were there, are going away. This does free us up to do other jobs, in new and exciting things. BUT... We have been trained to only do these manual labor jobs, really. The factory worker, the 9-5, the guy at the mill or the mine... These are the jobs that are still in the minds of all of us, because the education system has been tailored to these skill sets. Certainly the leap beyond exists. As we have seen many of these skills are highly adaptable and can be compartmentalized into other fields and yadda yadda yadda. What I'm seeing is that the jobs that require a warm body require a keen mind, with mad skills. There are always going to be low end jobs, but they are generally for low end pay. With inflation and the wealth distribution in America, you will be lucky to eat if you have 3 low end jobs. And if you do that, then 2 other poor souls need to find other jobs.
Where have the jobs gone? Over seas, to the robot
How do we need to fix it? Good question...
First thing I would be to ensure that our children are getting a diverse education in all the subjects needed for the 21st century. Math, Sciences, technology, languages and some practical skills. Bring Art and Crafts back. Workshop, trade skills.
Second, remove the sense of entitlement that seems to permeate the culture. Not sure how to do that.
So what do you think? Can we fix it?
