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The article comes out of the Australian press, but unless there's something truly unique about the Australian job market, it's almost certainly true elsewhere as well: a recent study shows more than half of young Australians are receiving college education to persue careers that will soon no longer exist. Thank robotics, industry consolidation, and the nature of the markets for the shrinking number of ways you will some day be able to earn a living.
There's a flip side to the debate, of course: there are certainly new things coming that haven't even been invented yet, that will provide job opportunities. But the trick is positioning yourself appropriately to take advantage of the new chances.
The not-for-profit group, which works with young Australians to create social change, says the national curriculum is stuck in the past and digital literacy, in particular, needs to be boosted. Foundation chief executive Jan Owen says young people are not prepared for a working life that could include five career changes and an average of 17 different jobs.
She says today's students will be affected by three key economic drivers: automation, globalisation and collaboration. "Many jobs and careers are disappearing because of automation," Ms Owen said. "The second driver is globalisation — a lot of different jobs that we're importing and exporting. And then thirdly collaboration which is all about this new sharing economy."
How does one future-proof his/her life and career?
Original Submission
(Score: 1, Troll) by mmcmonster on Friday August 28 2015, @09:58AM
While the idea of a basic income sounds great to me, I'm worried.
There are a LOT of people that don't want to be productive in life. Who just want to smoke weed or have kids or just laze about.
Now basic income doesn't care about the smoking weed and lazing about ones. Presumably enough people will want to go into the health care industry to take care of smoking-related issues. (And they'll do it to earn money to buy extra stuff.)
My concern is how to stop excessive breeding. I haven't looked at the numbers, but my wife always complains about people on the public dole who have more kids so they can get more money. If this is true, something has to be done to prevent people from gameing the system by having more kids.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Friday August 28 2015, @10:08AM
World over-population isn't caused by the "lazy" people on the dole. It's caused by poor education, oppression of women and religious dogma. The lazy people are a tiny percentage and will always be with us.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2015, @02:52PM
Citation needed. Don't buy Faux News's bullshit, people want to be productive, its human nature. In today's society especially most people can't be because the jobs don't exist and society is set up to fuck over the non-wealthy at every opportunity. Even without well-paying jobs, everyone has hobbies, that is, they work, even though its not considered "work" because it doesn't pay in cash, the sole indicator of a person's worth today.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2015, @04:13PM
If the productivity of a lot of people is no longer needed to keep the economy working and provide stuff for anyone, then what is the problem with those people not being productive?
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday August 28 2015, @11:29PM
I wouldn't worry too much about the odd person who just smokes weed all day. Basic income may even improve health outcomes, among other things. [wikipedia.org]
I'm in the same boat as Caffeine. I can think of many things I could be doing to make the world a better place and would love to do, but, unfortunately, my time and mental energy are usually completely sapped by the day job.
I have a hunch that a basic income might even do a lot about excessive breeding. I haven't looked into the details, so I might be woefully misinformed, but from what I've heard from some, er, career mothers, as it were, is that there are actually perverse incentives built into the system to encourage them to give birth once every 2–3 years. On the other hand, as others have pointed out, the best way to tackle that problem is through better education and free access to contraception and abortion (and no wacky ultrasound dildos).