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An economy where nothing is made, just people doing stuff? I mean, when people talk about "Service" jobs, they typically mean Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, and other high paying jobs. But these jobs are small in number and not everyone has what it takes to be a Doctor, Lawyer or Engineer.
I keep hearing about how America is going to reinvent itself but really is there such a thing as an economy of workers, millions of workers, who don't produce anything. I saw an article that jokingly said Prostitution is not the worlds oldest profession, merely the first Service Profession, because without someone producing, what would you have to trade for this service?
And I always hear about education, especially from Obama. College, that is the key. We need more college graduates, more college graduates will fix the economy. 30% of Americans have degrees, and something like 20% of jobs in America require them.
Now, unless you're majoring in a Professional field, like, Medicine, Law, Engineering, Technology, what does college teach you how to do? To actually do. The majority of people study business. But save for the Professional degree of Accounting, does Business provide you with any job skills? How about the Liberal Arts? If you want to study 16th century Russian Feminist childrens literature by all means do so, but how is that going to get someone a job? How many jobs actually require knowledge on a subject over training in performing some job?
Is there such a thing as an economy where everyone just performs services? The high paying professional jobs at the top are relatively few in number, middle class "administration jobs" are being slashed or automated, all that's left are the low paying service jobs at the bottom. Those are the jobs that are exploding. Those are the jobs replacing the middle class supporting manufacturing jobs. Even if everyone had a degree, how many office workers can there possibly be, and what would they all do?
Rather than giving us the number of jobs being created, I'd like to see the average wage. The average wage of jobs lost, to the average wage of jobs created. I'd bet the latter is much, much lower. This service based economy is a farce.
College should be considered a luxury with regards to those degrees not focused on hard skills. If people want to pursue them, they should have every right. Of course, they should do so WITH THEIR OWN MONEY!
With regards to the economy, we need to continue to be a nation of doers. The bulk of the profit always was in DESIGNING/MAKING the goods. The profit margins in retail are miniscule, and simply don't support a 1st world standard of living. Sending everyone to college on debt and expecting them to land high paying positions in a service based economy is simply foolish, and setting the bulk of young people, and the nation as a whole, up for failure. SUPPLY DOES NOT CREATE THE DEMAND! And really, whose gonna buy anything if they are not earning enough to do so, and straddled with debt?
I believe we have largely lost our direction as a nation. There is simply no one at the helm.
I think he's saying having a ton of college graduates isn't going to suddenly create some huge demand for college graduates who don't actually have job skills. We could send every person in america to college but that wouldn't create the jobs that would put that education to use.
I've never understood how someone with a degree is underemployed because they have a degree. I've never seen a job posting asking for a college graduate. To perform such duties as having a college degree. If you can't do anything worth paying for are you really underemployed?
An electrician as a cashier is underemployed. An Accountant washing cars is underemployed. A philosophy major though?
Historically, liberal arts degrees were an indicator of intelligence and work-ethic. Not everyone who was intelligent and hard working had a degree, but, everyone who had a degree was intelligent and hard working. They might not have had immediately useful skills, but, the degree basically certified "this person is trainable." It was a route to upward mobility for people with potential talent but no connections to just join the family company or whatever.
With the inflation of degrees, the growth of non-competitive and less competitive colleges, the decline of merit based admission, etc., that isn't true anymore. This creates several problems. First, it forces people who would rather spend college in the humanities into a STEM major - a lot of the what makes STEM majors so desirable isn't just employers who want the skill set, but employers who don't need the skill set but in this age of inflating degrees numbers, inflating GPAs, and 50% of each class getting in off legacy, sports, and affirmative action can't trust a humanities major to necessarily have the personal qualities that any degree would have indicated 50 years ago. Second, it generally makes it harder for potentially good entry-level workers to signal to employers, and for employers to find them. Third, it increases nepotism: if you don't have an easy way to separate the wheat from the chaff, better to go for someone that someone you know can vouch for. Fourth, it leaves a lot of people who shouldn't be attending college at all 4 years behind on their life with nothing to show for it but a giant load of debt. Fifth, it leads to those people with useless degrees trying to socially stigmatize people who chose not to get one: after all, if the degree doesn't have economic value, the only value it can have is social.
I could go on. It's basically a certification arms race and is a huge problem.
We'll always make things, but it is easier to measure increased productivity in manufacturing employments, than in professional staff. A robot can easily be programmed to pack out product, and we can calculate how many years of labor savings are needed to offset the robot's cost, but to ask a robot to draw from scratch the blueprints, good luck. Especially if the design requires understanding how/why to tweak it for last minute Marketing requested modifications.
So, that being said, the ratio of "doers" to "thinkers" will shrink in the 1st world countries. The "doers" are simply more expensive than the robots. And when the "doers" task can be reduced to rote tasks, doing it via robot is a piece of cake.
I think he's saying having a ton of college graduates isn't going to suddenly create some huge demand for college graduates who don't actually have job skills. We could send every person in america to college but that wouldn't create the jobs that would put that education to use.
I've never understood how someone with a degree is underemployed because they have a degree. I've never seen a job posting asking for a college graduate. To perform such duties as having a college degree. If you can't do anything worth paying for are you really underemployed?
An electrician as a cashier is underemployed. An Accountant washing cars is underemployed. A philosophy major though?
Exactly. When the labor market anticipates a future demand for more of these skilled professionals, companies begin to absorb the graduates and trains them. Same thing in all occupations, whether requiring a degree or not. We should also be encourage young Americans to explore professions and vocations besides the 4-year or beyond route. There was NEVER a time in this country's history when a 4-year degree was a must have to acquire meaningful employment, and I personally feel we are NOT at that point today. What we have is a very shaky economy that is failing to absorb a large chunk of these young people. When opportunities don't exist, they naturally will follow the only path available... A 4-year degree. If anything, I think many are running from the inevitable... The demands of the nasty "serviced-based economy"... No one wants to be the ones left behind stocking shelves and flipping burgers, and college appears to be the only refuge and only place left to hide. In a way, you can't blame them... And the government makes it easy enough for them to hide in college while the economy sorts itself out.
Personally, I also think we need to scrutinize the K-12 system. Why aren't young people coming out of high school without any marketable skills/knowledge? Why should the financial burden of obtaining such skills rest squarely on their shoulders? If k-12 isn't teaching anything of relevance, what good are our tax dollars doing, and how could we allocate them in a better fashion? I just find it a terrible waste to expect EVERY young adult to pursue secondary education when many are inevitably going to have to settle for careers below the professional level. Again, if you educated every American, someone still has to flip burgers and stock shelves, and no one will pay you more for doing these jobs because you have a 4-year degree. Personally, my time in HS was a huge benefit. I acquired vocational training for three years in manufacturing technology, which allowed me to jump into my current profession right after high school. I make a livable wage that allowed me to leave home at 20 and support myself. Guess what... The school eliminated that program right after I graduated. One less opportunity available for young people, what a shame... The state will pay for it when these young people cannot find meaningful work.
And I too have noticed a lot of young people calling themselves "underemployed" by virtue of merely holding a degree. While education is a noble pursuit, and should be encouraged for our best and brightest, we also have a lot of marginal students attending marginal schools, and costing the country a pretty penny. When they do not acquire high paying jobs as expected, the student will either be burdened with a hefty debt for little/no reward, or default. Neither one is a desirable situation FOR ANYONE. But calling them "underemployed" when they have not acquired the OTJ experience to make them proficient in their chosen role is not accurate. The labor market simply hasn't found a need to develop them into the type of professional they desire to be. Unfair? Not really. If you ask most Americans what they wanted to be when they were 10, I'm sure most of those desires did not come to fruition. I know plenty of baby boomers who acquired college degrees and ended up working as auto mechanics, bouncers, factory workers, etc. This is not a new phenomena. We all have to find a place in the labor market, and that is largely dictated by the DEMANDS of the labor market.
We'll always make things, but it is easier to measure increased productivity in manufacturing employments, than in professional staff. A robot can easily be programmed to pack out product, and we can calculate how many years of labor savings are needed to offset the robot's cost, but to ask a robot to draw from scratch the blueprints, good luck. Especially if the design requires understanding how/why to tweak it for last minute Marketing requested modifications.
So, that being said, the ratio of "doers" to "thinkers" will shrink in the 1st world countries. The "doers" are simply more expensive than the robots. And when the "doers" task can be reduced to rote tasks, doing it via robot is a piece of cake.
I would also consider an engineer to be a "doer". The boundaries are a bit hazy in many cases. Many times, the engineers are also programing the robots or computer controlled equipment, and directly responsible for "doing" the work. That is to say, they are making the part, just the same as their blue collar counterpart, the machinist, would be doing. In many cases, the titles can even be interchangeable. In fact, part of the role of a machinist is to be able to consult customers on design changes based on the most practical method of manufacturing. In other cases, engineers are responsible for designing the work, and actually installing it. The boundaries are not necessarily that black and white. The "thinkers" are often just as much the "doers", and visa versa.
And this is why I emphasis often, we need intelligent folks to consider other occupations besides the traditional 4-year degree routes. We are going to be loosing a great deal of potential work in this country when the babyboomers retire, and take their years of experience and knowledge with them, without having the chance to pass it down. Some of this stuff takes years, even decades to thoroughly learn. Once it's gone, it's gone for good I fear.
Historically, liberal arts degrees were an indicator of intelligence and work-ethic. Not everyone who was intelligent and hard working had a degree, but, everyone who had a degree was intelligent and hard working. They might not have had immediately useful skills, but, the degree basically certified "this person is trainable." It was a route to upward mobility for people with potential talent but no connections to just join the family company or whatever.
With the inflation of degrees, the growth of non-competitive and less competitive colleges, the decline of merit based admission, etc., that isn't true anymore. This creates several problems. First, it forces people who would rather spend college in the humanities into a STEM major - a lot of the what makes STEM majors so desirable isn't just employers who want the skill set, but employers who don't need the skill set but in this age of inflating degrees numbers, inflating GPAs, and 50% of each class getting in off legacy, sports, and affirmative action can't trust a humanities major to necessarily have the personal qualities that any degree would have indicated 50 years ago. Second, it generally makes it harder for potentially good entry-level workers to signal to employers, and for employers to find them. Third, it increases nepotism: if you don't have an easy way to separate the wheat from the chaff, better to go for someone that someone you know can vouch for. Fourth, it leaves a lot of people who shouldn't be attending college at all 4 years behind on their life with nothing to show for it but a giant load of debt. Fifth, it leads to those people with useless degrees trying to socially stigmatize people who chose not to get one: after all, if the degree doesn't have economic value, the only value it can have is social.
I could go on. It's basically a certification arms race and is a huge problem.
Yes to all of that. I mean, college isn't bad, but blindly telling people that college is the end all be all panacea for your economic woes is false and hurts a lot of people.
Yes to all of that. I mean, college isn't bad, but blindly telling people that college is the end all be all panacea for your economic woes is false and hurts a lot of people.
It's basically an expensive way to kick the can down the road... Well, we don't have any good jobs for you today, so go to college and it might be better when you graduate.... Well, a lot of them have graduated and I'm sure they would love to tell you how much love they are getting from the labor market, as well as their creditors...
I think it's safe to say, politicians have done a marvelous job of kicking my generation in the pants. Thanks
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