The kind of high-end-job-creating invention that America is famous for appears to be on a boat somewhere headed for Asia. I’ve blogged on China’s purchase of technological expertise – literally hiring a top engineering professor, for example, out of prestigious Princeton University and bribing him with research money beyond his wildest expectations. I’ve written how China is requiring technology transfers and underlying patent information for companies that want to sell in the Peoples Republic. Growth is leaving our shores for the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China)… and technological research – not just building Western designs and providing cheap labor to do that – is now leading the way. The impact on American jobs is devastating.
The June 11th Los Angeles Times: “The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that seven of the 10 employment sectors that will see the largest gains over the next decade won't require much more than some on-the-job training. These include home healthcare aides, customer service representatives and food preparers and servers. Meanwhile, well-paying white-collar jobs such as computer programming have become vulnerable to outsourcing to foreign countries.” When we are watching any kind of job growth, maybe we need to focus a whole lot more on the quality of those employment opportunities and what they mean for our longer-term expectations. After all, low paid workers don’t buy houses or consume at a level that would make retailers hopeful; this kind of employment actually kills the notion of a “recover y” and plateaus the American lifestyle at a much lower level than we have enjoyed in decades. The resultant polarization of haves and have-nots is a nation-killer as well; can America, the nation we all love and care for, survive in this mix? Add a few environmental disasters – like we have in the Gulf now – and where does that take us?
This job trend also brings into question the value of an American college education, including even advanced degrees in law and business. Is education really worthwhile when the likelihood is that a recent grad is only going to get a relatively unskilled and lower paying job regardless of schooling? Doesn’t that notion make trade school and community colleges (when they teach real blue collar skills) more valuable? The Times continues on this theme: “After spending tens of thousands of dollars on higher education, often taking on huge debts along the way, many face a job market that doesn’t seem to need them. Not only is the American economy producing few new jobs of any kind, but the ones that are being added are overwhelmingly on the lower end of the skill and pay scale.
“In fact, government surveys indicate that the vast majority of job gains this year have gone to workers with only a high school education or less, casting some doubt on one of the nation's most deeply held convictions: that a college education is the ticket to the American Dream… ‘People with bachelor's degrees will increasingly get not very highly satisfactory jobs,’ said W. Norton Grubb, a professor at UC Berkeley's School of Education. ‘In that sense, people are getting more schooling than jobs are available.’” I can tell you that the number of unemployed law school graduates is staggering, and unless you have a degree from a really top business school, there are an awful lot of MBA who have learned to make a great espresso… while stressing out about repaying massive loans to cover past tuition that often crossed the $40-$50,000 a year mark for professional school. This sounds like the Philippines, Latin America and India – where college-educated people work at call centers or as processing clerks in some outsource center – but not the United States of America.
It tough being college bound right now: “According to the National Assn. of Colleges and Employers, increasing numbers of students are reconsidering majors and career choices based on projections of who's hiring, not their interests… It's understandable. They're surrounded by bleak statistics: The unemployment rate for young job-seekers is close to 20%. Only one in four college graduates reached commencement with a job in hand, compared with more than half three years ago. The dearth of jobs and depression in wages may stunt their incomes for a decade to come.” LA Times (June 12th) Young grads are acutely aware that starting with low pay as the base upon which future raises and promotions are built suggests a massive reduction in expected lifetime earnings. We have a crisis, but American can and must rise to the occasion; we’ve done it before.
When the Russians sent Sputnik into outer space (before we got there) in the late 1950s, the United States kicked into gear, upgrading its scientific and engineering skills, pushing math and science at every level within the educational system, from top to bottom. American productivity and creative output soared; we kicked some series butt! We landed on the moon in 1969! Well folks, it’s that time again. We need to stop taking apart our education system and refocus our priorities to a new and future-relevant curriculum … or we won’t be toasting our future; we will be toast.
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