In other breaking news, the grass is green, the sky is blue, and Avatar is basically The Smurfs Movie in 3-D. As per usual, Eric Cartman, you were right.
Equally as obvious are the numerous of related effects to the economy's current sucktitude. People are getting laid off from their jobs, the dollar has fallen precipitously in value, the housing market is only now beginning to slowly rebuild itself, and students continue graduating and, theoretically, moving into the work force regardless.
Normally this works in a way that the work force renews itself. As people work, they slowly move up the chain in their given career area. They reach their peak, then at some point retire, opening those positions up for people just below them on the chain of command. As those people move up, the people below them move up and so on until the entry-level employees have moved up one notch, meaning the company must now hire new entry-level employees.
It's like how fingernails renew themselves.
With the current direction of our economy, however, it hasn't quite worked like that. Many have had to take pay cuts, or work extra jobs because their mortgage and/or credit card payments have increased to the point where they can't afford them. These people then can't save up for retirement and, logically, don't retire. No one in the company is able to move up. Companies can't afford new employees, nor do they have the space for them, save for in extreme circumstances.
If the normal string of events is like fingernails renewing themselves, then this is the current state of our job market:
A lot of recent graduates have been demoralized and impoverished by their inability to find a job in those decaying fingernails. As consequence many have done what seems most financially feasible, they have returned to school to get their Master's degrees. It's a move that almost everyone in my immediate age group that I've talked to has been seriously considering or has already done.
On the surface, this seems commendable. It is, mostly. There's something absolutely commendable about the decision to continue your education, and something absolutely intelligent about specializing yourself so you have greater experience and knowledge in a certain field where you will have better job opportunities and, hopefully, some cleaner fingernails to deal with.
In the Great Depression, the last economic downturn of this seriousness, education was - for the most part - negatively affected. But one byproduct of the Depression that is less talked about is the fact that it grew the ranks of college students in the United States. Where many High School students, especially those from blue-collar neighborhoods, would go to work immediately after their graduation, the fact that the Great Depression had collapsed the job market caused many of these same students to instead go to college, in the hopes that upon their college graduation, the economy would have stabilized and their more advanced degree would give them a leg up on their competition in the workplace. Community Colleges, such as the City College of New York, were in some cases free at the time.
Again, this seems commendable.
The consequence of this move is a subtle, almost hidden thing. By having more and more students attend college during the Great Depression, they raised the standards for entry-level work positions. In less than a generation, the Bachelor's degree had easily supplanted the High School diploma as the necessary level of education to enter the work force, even for basic tasks.
In the same way, as the economy continues to be poor and finding jobs continues to be inordinately difficult, and more students go back to get their Master's degrees, it will subsequently force the Master's degree to supplant the Bachelor's degree as the necessary level of education to enter the work force. Extrapolating, that means there could be a time in the future where to become an Administrative Assistant, it'll be necessary to have a Doctorate in a related field.
Assuming it takes until a person's late 20s to early 30s to do this, this means it'll be a requirement of people to spend roughly a third of their lives educating themselves before they can enter the work force. Currently the retirement age is 62, roughly 40 years after a person typically enters the work force (as a Bachelor's degree is typically acquired around the age of 22). If it takes until the early 30s, then retirement wouldn't be possible until a person's early 70s, years after the typical age markers for some serious disease risks. In other words, a person will probably have to work until the day they die.
I'm not trying to suggest people stop going for their Master's degrees. Even if it is just a reactionary measure to the economy, it's hard to fault someone for wanting to educate themselves or put themselves in a better position for a job. But society's reactions, specifically the workplace's reaction, to the changing education landscape has the potential to negatively impact the working landscape for years to come.
It's hard to say what the solution is. There may not be one. But the discussion deserves to take place.
So here's the first clip of the fingernail.
NOTE: The issue of the economy also affects us on a more basic level of making enough money and, being a freelance writer, I too have suffered from it. Over on the bar to the right, below my Twitter feed, I have placed a Donate button linked to Racecar Brown's PayPal account. The economy is affecting all of us and I understand if you do not have the means to donate but, if you do, it would be much appreciated.
Donations will of course contribute to the improvement of Racecar Brown, from the purchase of a domain name, to the hiring of a graphic designer and/or web designer, to bringing in other writers for more topics. So, if you enjoy this blog and have the means, please help. Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment