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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: 3, Insightful) by deimtee on Friday August 28 2015, @11:35AM
The first cordless drill I ever bought, about 30 years ago, cost me half of a week's wages. It was 7.2 volt, nicad battery, 10mm chuck. Now, it would cost half an hour's wages, or less.
When everybody can have all the stuff they want, for practically nothing, the economy has to change.
They* need you (average peon) to spend almost all of your income.
As automation reduces costs, other expenses must rise. Currently, the major expenses are food, healthcare, and accomodation.
I would bet that if you could start a massive trend of people planting gardens and growing their own food, then healthcare costs and land prices/rentals would rise accordingly;
* They being TPTB, the illuminati, the 0.1%, the Rothschilds, who-ever you think controls society, etc. Basically the upper class.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday August 28 2015, @02:31PM
Another way of looking at it: Good capitalists don't want to pay more for labor than they have to. The cost of labor is equal to the amortized cost of creating a worker capable of doing the job (approximately $500,000 US, spread over a 40-year career, or about $12,500 annually in the US) + the cost of current maintenance of the worker (approximately $20,000 US). That means that any wage over about $33,000 US a year is considered a market inefficiency to be cut away at first opportunity, and absolutely any money spent on the maintenance of retired persons is also seen as a complete waste. If you aren't part of George Carlin's "big club" that runs all the big businesses, you aren't supposed to be able to do anything more than kinda scrape by and then die quickly shortly after you retire.
Oh, and for the many many people paid less than $33,000 a year, what's going on there is that they aren't paying the complete cost of maintenance, which may cost them in the long run but will allow them to take advantage for a while until the medical bills are due, in which case the 40-year career becomes a 25-year career but they can just cut the person that's having health problems and replace them with somebody else.
Now, how do you get those workers to accept this lousy lousy deal? There are basically 3 ways:
- Create an illusion of upward mobility by allowing a few of those who completely buy into the system to join the capitalist class or something akin to it. A few insta-billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, that kind of thing, as an escape hatch. You can do that without threatening the gravy train for the people who are really at the top of the heap, like Sam Walton's kids.
- You tamp down on any entrepreneurial efforts using the power of finance: bank loan terms and venture capital. Bank loans work to make the business not-super-profitable by charging enough interest that most of the work the entrepreneur does goes to the bank. Venture capital / "angel investors" / whatever-they're-calling-them-now works as a control by ensuring that the entrepreneur doesn't control the company - instead the investors do.
- You give everybody else the option of working for barely enough to pay the bills, or not working at all. And you do everything you can to cut back public assistance to below that point, so that not working means not paying the bills means homelessness and hunger (this is absolutely vital: You can use made-up examples to convince those who work that those who are on the dole have it easy to convince them to vote against an increased dole, but never let those on the dole actually have it easy because you want them to be desperately looking for work). You allow for and even fund some private charity, to make those who have a little bit more than enough for themselves feel good by paying for those that do not have quite enough.
This doesn't require a grand conspiracy. All it requires is a system that abstracts away human misery so that those at the top with the power to fix it can't actually see the effects of what they are doing, a middle management philosophy based on sociopathy, and everyone else attempting to maximize their investment returns and/or trying to pay the bills. And I should point out that more education doesn't do what most people think: its purpose is to lower the salaries of the more skilled professions down to that $33,000/year level.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2015, @06:41PM
You tamp down on any entrepreneurial efforts using the power of finance: bank loan terms and venture capital. Bank loans work to make the business not-super-profitable by charging enough interest that most of the work the entrepreneur does goes to the bank. Venture capital / "angel investors" / whatever-they're-calling-them-now works as a control by ensuring that the entrepreneur doesn't control the company - instead the investors do.
I disagree. MOST businesses are not viable. Oh they are lots of work and many times have lots of money. But do not really make much.
Take for example McDonalds. Can not argue they are wildly successful. It is because they do LOTS of things in volume. Mass volume. Their margin on a dinner is probably on the order of 30-50 cents. I bought yesterday a full meal for 3 adults for 10 bucks. There was basically little to no profit there. But there were at least 10 people behind me doing the same thing. Volume.
The margin on most things is tiny. If you misunderstand what margin is you will fail. No matter how much VC you have. Most VC's are looking for non work money. Basically looking to offload something onto some other sucker at more than what they paid before the thing eats itself. Because there is no margin.
Real work is needed. But it does not pay much. Why? There is a massive supply of people to do the work. That is simple economics. More supply usually means less value. One mona lisa painting is worth a lot because there are only 2 of them. A billion of them? Nearly worthless. Scarcity causes value.
If you ignore market realities and try to bend them you will end up on the wrong end of the ledger book. You can 'trick' it by playing with min wage. But then you get companies like Uber which have neatly walked around min wage laws (for now).
I have about 5 different business ideas. Only one is currently profitable. The rest have little to no margin. No matter how much money I borrow will not fix that. That is all VC is a loan with a condition to sell.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday August 28 2015, @07:27PM
I agree that most businesses aren't viable. That wasn't the point of my post though. My point was that the VCs are one mechanism of ensuring that those who are not part of the "big club" and are not among those few allowed to join it don't actually control the businesses that they think they're in charge of.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2015, @09:35PM
accomodation
There are more empty residences in the USA than there are homeless people.
The reason they are empty is GREED and the acceptance of that status quo.
If municipalities (Richmond, CA is in the vanguard) would declare those empty properties a public nuisance and purchase them under eminent domain and put families in those at a reasonable mortgage payment, that would strengthen the community--in contrast to the downward spiral so many gov'ts have accepted as normal.
Of course (to get back onto the original topic), those people will need jobs.
Again, there are empty commercial properties in every city.
Again, use eminent domain to gain control of those and put workers in them, making money and paying taxes.
Bring in people who have already formed worker cooperatives and have them show the locals how it is done.
.
healthcare
Cuba produces so many healthcare workers that they are known for how many doctors they export and the cash that brings into the country.
With no domestic scarcity, medical care becomes very affordable.
...meanwhile, in the USA, there's the American Medical Association, a lobbying group that does everything it can to LIMIT the number of medical schools in order to maximize the profits of the incumbents.
...not to mention Big Pharma and its massively overpriced products due to "intellectual property" and, again, lobbying.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday August 28 2015, @11:09PM
I looked for some numbers about empty residences and found a relevant StackExchange discussion [stackexchange.com].
According to Forbes, as of 2013, roughly half [forbes.com] of vacant homes aren't even available on the market.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2015, @11:27PM
forbes.com
If people are going to link to a site where the TEXT is behind scripts, those folks should specify which ONE script it is necessary to whitelist to see that content.
-- gewg_