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My dad didn't go to college. He went into the navy at sixteen, not finishing high school. He did that in the navy. But after the war, due to his experience with communications, not schooling, he got a job with Locheed. And he got into their space division.
When they created a commission to determine why Apollo 1 burned, my dad was on it.
Sadly today he'd not have a chance. He'd have to get a degree in the right things before anyone would consider him. We no longer hire and train. We expect all the training to be there, preferably at some other company's expense.
I really wonder how many people like my dad are being left by the wayside today.
Excuse me, but Lockheed didn't initially train your Dad ... the US Navy did.
Young people today can gain experience in the military today and earn college credit while in the service and get money to finish their education after they separate.
Eventually it will get back to house fixing and lawnmowing season. Unfortunately there aren't enough house repairs or laws to make up for the loss. So just what DO we do with all the people who won't ever get the tech jobs and have to fight for the diminishing list of others????
Maybe we need some self starter non tech options even IF we have the tech.
I can't help but think of The Grapes of Wrath, but instead of dusted-out farmers being replaced by tractors, it is everything we can accomplish being replaced by computers. We are going to have to figure out what to do as the labor we have becomes less valuable.
Wow, denigrate much?
I'd bet 1M un/underemployed people would love those jobs.
How about reducing the raw number of "unskilled lower class"??
Without them... the more skilled or capable of learning can be paid more.
THAT will boost productivity and the overall economy.
Maybe even enough to produce the taxes needed to maintain the feral.
How about killing 1/2 the population? That way we could do away with those we can barely stomach looking at.
No one touches on the real problem. I watched it happen after I quit the construction business. The unskilled labor jobs were filled by American citizens who finished HS and spoke English. Those jobs are now filled by woefully unskilled illegals who will work for far less, doing an shoddy job to boot which is acceptable to far too any people. My brother owns a good sized construction company in Texas and the quality of labor he gets is a crap shoot. My memories of the field was grizzled journeymen who taught young kids how to do a job correctly. When I go on my brother's jobs it is unskilled older guys showing mindless idiots how to fill a void with material. He is a stickler and a hard ass because most of his work is with school systems and they have government mandated standards he must adhere to.
Add the mindless woefully unskilled who will work for nothing to the plethora of people lacking ambition today - afraid to do an honest day's work - and we have no blue collar class. Automation still requires humans to over see the machines, more than one may think. Robots don't maintain themselves o the workplace, humans fill that role.
How many help desk call centers are overseas? I called Verizon and got a woman named 'Mary' onthe line with an accent so thick I couldn't understand at first. I think those Americanized names are supposed to make us feel more comfortable than Consuelo or Guadalupe. Those positions could be here in the states and would be win/win. You can pay those people $10.00 hr and customer can talk to an English speaking American while employing those lacking jobs.
Who works in office buildings doing janitorial work? The wave of immigrants that hit in the 80s fit that bill for the most part from what I see.
Any job is better than no job. Ask one who wants to work. [/quote]
Bull manure. Stop blaming immigrants for Americans' own short-comings, ie, their willingness to get off their butts and improve their skills.
Maybe if your brother offered better wages, he'd get better workers. Y'know, that's how supply and demand. When there's a higher demand for good workers, ya gotta pay more to get them.
Automation requires employees who know how to operate and repair complex machines, not barely literate HS grads who got their diplomas for vegetating and not causing trouble for four years.
Once again, I disagree. The assault on the blue collar trades has been going on since at least the 80's, when in the euphoria of the nascent personal computer era, the elites were crowing about how we no longer needed steel mills, for example, and we could retrain steel workers into computer programmers. I kid you not!
Since that time, high school trade programs (machine shop, woodshop, auto mechanics, for example) were shut down because we should all become college educated lawyers and accountants and managers.
I worked blue collar for some years out of HS. Back when I was in HS and this was still the USA most school systems had Vo-tech education to teach students actual trades. I wonder what most people think about when calling some company for home repair, maintenance, TV/phone/internet, car repair or other things they cannot do for themselves. Do those technicians fall from trees ready to ring their doorbells? Where do the technicians come from who work on your cars? Who installs your home alarm system?
These surely can't be Americans who went through American school systems...we are all supposed to go to college to become IT professionals, aren't we? Who maintains the ATMs, elevators, escalators, traffic signals, phone/power lines or any of the other trivial stuff most take for granted?
Are those people of less worth than one who sits in an office playing on the internet all day long? I know several people who do just that while other friends I have maintain power lines or are carpenters or plumbers. I have friends across the board as far as professions and several of the white collar variety are out of touch with reality.
They are the usually the first to utter "Someone should do something about that". Really? Who is someone and what should someone do about it?
We have turned away from being a nation of "can do" to a nation of "call someone to fix it". Who is that someone?
I have nothing against higher education - I am a product of such - but there is no need for college educated everyone and not enough positions for them to fill. Not every job in this nation requires a BA, BS, MBA, NFL, masters or PHD to accomplish. Ask a college grad driving a pizza delivery vehicle about it.
I own an oddball collection of equipment, tools and whatnot to maintain my home/autos. I also possess the knowledge to use them. My neighbors know this and ask me to help, do or borrow things. They are amazed to learn my John Deere mower is 25 years old because I maintain it.
I didn't learn those skills at college.
Quite a broad brush you paint with. What about auto mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, interior decorators? All those well paying occupations which do not require advanced degrees?
Where did I say "required advanced degrees"? I included CCs, trade schools, apprenticeships, etc. My entire point was that the students who are "left behind" are those who are clueless about making something of themselves, not the young people who have some idea of what they'd like to do besides get some beer money.
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Originally Posted by chuckmann
Again, the broad brush. Automation of the chip manufacturing industry and the circuit board industry, for example, require little in the way of "thinking" labor. How many more industries could be automated, where what we used to call "semi-skilled" labor could be replaced by machines?
Somebody has to operate, monitor, program, and maintain those machines. These aren't jobs that are typical mindless assembly line work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chuckmann
Once again, I disagree. The assault on the blue collar trades has been going on since at least the 80's, when in the euphoria of the nascent personal computer era, the elites were crowing about how we no longer needed steel mills, for example, and we could retrain steel workers into computer programmers. I kid you not!
The US steel industry was still using 19th century technology (open hearth furnaces) in the 1970s and 1980s which required lots of labor input while the Japanese and Germans were making steel using computers. The American plants that adopted new technology are still operating today while those that didn't have been shuttered for decades. The US makes about as much steel today as it did 30 years ago, just with a whole lot fewer workers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chuckmann
Since that time, high school trade programs (machine shop, woodshop, auto mechanics, for example) were shut down because we should all become college educated lawyers and accountants and managers.
I don't know where you live, but that's not the case in NYS. Most counties in Upstate NY offer regional HS vocational programs based on student-demand (BOCES). Some urban school districts offer their own vocational programs. The fact is that vocational programs became too costly for individual high schools to maintain themselves, especially with declining student interest. Furthermore, in many states, community colleges offer vocational programs at reasonable rates.
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Originally Posted by chuckmann
I somewhat agree, but I also believe it is more complicated than you present. In younger years I worked a couple of blue collar jobs while I went to night school to improve myself. I rubbed elbows with blue collar types who were highly skilled and who had interesting hobbies including reading, crossword puzzles, acrostics, and other things that I certainly failed at. In other words, not all them people cant find jobs are unmotivated. I dont have a solution, but I am sure that the answer is not to "motivate" them.
A big problem is that too many blue collar workers are unwilling to step out of the blue collar mindset. They can't see themselves doing something other than working in a factory, so they keep chasing fading job opportunities in blue collar jobs rather than investigating other options like enrolling in their local CC to learn welding or nursing or some other skill that gives them an edge. Their problems are different from those of 18-year-olds who aren't particularly concerned with what they'll do once they graduate ... if they even graduate because well, writing that last English paper is just sooooo boring y'know.
The world's changed, and the chances of somebody working his/her entire life in the same industry doing the same job are probably very slim. Many, if not most, young people today will likely be working in fields/disciplines that either are virtually unknown or don't even exist today. Going back to the classroom at some point, possibly more than once, is probably in most workers' futures unless they're content to flip burgers or ring up groceries for barely enough to survive on.
The world's changed, and the chances of somebody working his/her entire life in the same industry doing the same job are probably very slim. Many, if not most, young people today will likely be working in fields/disciplines that either are virtually unknown or don't even exist today. Going back to the classroom at some point, possibly more than once, is probably in most workers' futures unless they're content to flip burgers or ring up groceries for barely enough to survive on.
Correct, and in the next few years, a robot will be making most burgers and RFID would have wiped out most cashiering positions.
The biggest problem for a large chunk of low income people is they have spent too little time planning on what they want to do, and how to get there. If they had spent 10% of the time they wasted hating high school on thinking past that hatred, they would be in low skill, minimum wage plus a quarter jobs, for just a brief period in high school getting their feet wet in the labor market. They would than keep taking the steps to insure those future plans came through.
Goober (Andy Griffith) has been replaced, by someone technically and formally educated.
I agree. Many CCs offer automotive technician training. They also offer welding, HVAC, professional pilot, airline mechanic, etc. Most of these courses are too difficult/expensive for local high schools to offer because of high equipment overhead and faculty credentials. CCs and trade schools have more lee way, and will charge lab fees as appropriate.
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