The Job Market of the 21 st Century

1. The Job Market of the 21st Century Mr. Way, Economics, 3/29

2. A Revolutionary New Century • The professional world is currently undergoing profound changes. • The path that your great-grandparent, grandparents and parents took to success will not work for you. • In order to become a “success” in the new age, you will need to break out of old thinking.

3. The Old Path to Success • In the past, the surest way to success was to learn a trade (a.k.a. profession, skill). • One of the surest ways to learn a trade was to go to college and study it. • Once you had acquired your trade, you would work in that field for your entire life, gradually rising in responsibility and compensation. • Ultimately, you would retire, making room for the next person in the cycle.

4. End of the Old Path • Sadly, this path to guaranteed comfort no longer exists. It has been killed by: • Automation achievements. • Networking achievements. • Quickening pace of technological growth. • Rising standards of living in other countries.

5. Automation • In the 20th century, automation generally referred to mechanical and physical processes. • The people losing their jobs to machines were manual laborers. Machines were able to do specific physical tasks better than humans. • In the 21st century, lots of thinking tasks are being automated; programs like TurboTax are taking over human functions. • As computers advance, the tasks they perform will only become more complex, removing many job positions as they do. • In this century, you can’t count on your job existing for the whole span of your working life.

6. Networking Achievements • The Internet has revolutionized the world by connecting people more integrally and cheaply than ever before. • Now, vast informational resources on ALL topics are available to people as well as the search engines to help them navigate it, and forums to give them personalized answers • Because expertise is so easily available on the Web, the marginal productivity of being an expert has diminished significantly. • Don’t expect a raise just for being there a while.

7. Rate of Technological Growth • A concept called “Moore’s Law” basically states that computers double in power every couple of years. It has almost been accurate. • Increases in computing power regularly lead to new developments in automation of increasingly complex tasks. • They also lead to the creation of new goods and services that were previously impossible. • The increasing rate of technological development means that professions will come and go rapidly.

8. Competition from the World • From the 1700s through the 1900s, the “Western” world dominated the economic landscape due to the Industrial Revolution. • It has taken until now, but finally other parts of the world are catching up in development. • This century will see China and India (and some others), go from impoverished and backward to modern and competitive.

9. Competition from the World (2) • First, this means the cheap Chinese labor we have relied on for so long will vanish. • Second, this means that many of the high paying jobs we counted on here have been outsourced over there. • Third, it means that instead of providing cheap labor, these countries will be competing to purchase cheap labor, driving up the price. • Fourth, higher living standards means more demand for goods and services, which means higher prices world-wide. • Long story short: Americans will make less on average this century than they did last century.

10. The New Path to Success? • There is such no path. We are looking at the beginning of a new society, so nobody knows the best way to go for sure. • Given the central role of computers in driving changes to our system, it would seem that computer programming is a fairly safe profession. • However, even programmers can be replaced by computers.

11. The New Path to Success • The job market of the future is highly uncertain and highly unstable. • The way to ensure yourself a position isn’t by becoming an expert in one thing anymore. Any (& every) thing may become obsolete. • Rather, you must become versatile. Learn how to become an expert rapidly in any field. • You must be able to adapt as quickly as the needs of society. Learn how to learn.

12. Summary Questions • Why is “the old path to success” no longer functional? (what changed, and how do those changes affect American job security?) • What is your definition of “success?” • Are you confident in your ability to succeed in the 21st century, according to your own definition?

13. Vocabulary Review Adjustment • Instead of every 3 weeks… • Whenever a team reaches 300 points, I will get that group lunch. • When giving clues, I will award bonus points to people who explain the word using economics instead of common vocabulary.