<p>So...what our society needs is more high school dropout, and kids who don't attend college. I'm serious. If you look at the BLS report below, Table 2, you'll see that 18 of the 20 jobs that will see the largest growth 2010-2020 don't require any college, and, in many cases, not even a high school diploma. Only two require a college degree.</p>
<p>Luckily, our schools are really good at producing dropouts. "Meeting the needs of the 21st Century."</p>
<p>In terms of education, more often than not that’s in Engineering and not Math. </p>
<p>I’m also confused about some of these… Accountants only need high school degrees?
Cashiers are going to experience growth? Not sure if the author’s been to a grocery store recently. </p>
<p>Another thing you’ll notice is that almost all of them have sub-25K year median salaries. Is that what we want in the future? The only jobs on the list in table 2 that have above 35K median salaries are Nurses, Truck Drivers (just barely), Post Secondary Teachers (so professors?), Elementary Teachers, and Sales Representatives. Hardly the future anyone wants.</p>
<p>There’s always a need for more technocrats…but not many of them. Engineers? Dime a dozen in India and China, and better ones, too. WalMart clerks are the wave of the future, and teachers to flunk 'em.</p>
<p>Presuming the economy grows, business and industry have learned how to function essentially without middle management…lean manufacturing, JIT, Six Sigma and numerous other initiatives plus automation took care of the necessity for middle management and paper pushers. The downturn in the economy hit the services industry hard so jobs were shed that were lower wage but those will come back if the economy comes back. Construction grown to a halt and business deferred maintenance so it’s understandable the construction industry and trades will come back, someone has to ‘fix’ all that deferred maintenance. </p>
<p>Older workers are hanging onto their jobs having their retirements pelted by downturns in the market, escalating college costs for their kids and the tightening of the banking loan industry. The aging population will tax the healthcare system and the healthcare model is changing. Most of these charts seemed pretty believable. </p>
<p>I do agree that HH incomes won’t rise as rapidly…heck most jobs have been paying zero - three percent increases for almost a decade now and no cost of living adjustment on top of that. It’s supply and demand…no need to pay big salaries when there are plenty of takers. It’s really the new normal and another reason why almost every parent cautions kids not to go into excess debt for a college degree. Things have changed even between my oldest heading off to college and now my youngest heading off. Oldest is moving up slowly in a service industry, soon to be graduate is focused on water conservation and water in general and the youngest wants construction. Many of the kids have a “sense” of where the future is going. But yeah, from 2004 - 2009 my primarily engineering company farmed much of the entry level/mid level engineering out to low cost countries and it’s probably not coming back.</p>
<p>How are those jobs that don’t require a diploma doing for those families who are interested in the finer things of life?
Like health insurance, a roof over their head and the ability to retire eventually?</p>
<p>+20% Doctoral or professional degree
+22% Master’s degree
+17% Bachelor’s degree
+18% Associate’s degree
+17% Postsecondary non-degree award
+18% Some college, no degree
+12% High school diploma or equivalent
+14% Less than high school</p>
<p>One field that looks very promising is 3-D printing. Rather than stocking every conceivable part for every conceivable product, 3-D printing – effectively one-off manufacturing, building a part layer by layer – will allow small shops to download a CAM/CAD software file from anywhere in the world, modify it if necessary, and make the part locally.</p>
<p>The types of jobs that exist depend in part on who is available to fill them. India has more people working in call centers for Western companies than China does because India has more people who are fluent in English. The supply of such people (and cheap telecommunications) effectively created the jobs.</p>
<p>The same thing occurs in the U.S. Massachusetts has different types of jobs than Arkansas, because its labor force has different skills. If the U.S. produced more engineers than it did now, more jobs for engineers would be created, although maybe not enough to absorb the supply.</p>
<p>Yeah, but the number of job represented in the percent change in jobs requiring degrees is tiny, and likely smaller than the increase in the number of degrees in those fields over the past two decades. </p>
<p>Accounting “jobs” means bookkeeping. The vast majority of people doing accounting do not have CPAs, and many of them have virtually no college at all.</p>
<p>Nursing aids where I live require a six-week course. </p>
<p>We have a HUGE surplus of STEM graduates, other than nurses.</p>
<p>Change “STEM” to “biology” to get a more accurate picture. Biology is the largest STEM major, and the one which is most in surplus to major-specific jobs. Various STEM subjects differ considerably in job prospects, so lumping all of them together (either optimistically or pessimistically, as is common done here) gives an inaccurate picture.</p>
<p>But getting back to jobs needing only a high school diploma or less… some of them may be taken by high school or college students who need to work to earn some money, but have not yet completed what will be their highest educational attainment.</p>
<p>I can believe that the # of cashiers needed is growing…sadly, I applied to 21 summer jobs this past season (things like retail) and only got one call for an interview (and when the interview was scheduled during something important and inflexible, I couldn’t get another time for an interview. That was the anticlimactic ending to my summer job hunt!). I’ve been to several of the places where I didn’t get jobs, and everyone there is a “real adult,” not a college student like I am. </p>
<p>If there’s one thing that bugs me, it’s the negative outlook for non-STEM majors. I have never been particularly good at anything beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication and division–and I worked HARD to try to become a decent math student. It just wasn’t in my skills. But I know that I’m really good at so many other things, so the seemingly-bleak job outlook for the rest of us always gets to me.</p>
<p>Even if some jobs don’t require a degree, that doesn’t mean they’ll hire out of high school. A relative of mine recently graduated from a state school. He’s found a good job in law enforcement (something he likes and wanted). The job technically doesn’t require a degree, but out of all the applicants (several), the only two hired were him and the other 4 year degree holder.</p>
<p>He doesn’t regret his degree at all and is getting his loans paid off quickly.</p>
<p>As long as one is cautious about debt levels (some is ok, oodles is not), I can’t see where having a degree will ever hurt one in the job hunt.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t want to live off of those non-degree jobs that are supposedly so plentiful. Some do well without a degree or post high school training (for decent paying trades), but the vast majority aren’t what I’d be aiming for.</p>
<p>“Luckily, our schools are really good at producing dropouts” – true that, but they also charge us so much to produce these dropouts! I guess you have to pay for what you get :)</p>
<p>There may be many jobs that don’t require a high-school diploma but those employers would like people that show up on time, can follow directions, complete tasks and learn processes and procedures. Having a high-school diploma is an indication that a prospective employees is more likely to have these traits. So it’s not just any high-school dropout that’s going to get the job.</p>
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<p>I think that most retailers don’t want summer college students unless the work is seasonal. They’d rather hire someone that has retail experience and will work throughout the year so that they don’t lose their training.</p>
<p>In general, the CC program that trains RTs in our state does not REQUIRE that the applicants have degrees but as a practical matter, most of them have bachelor’s degrees and a few even have PhDs. Most of them are able to get hired as an RT after the complete the program, pass exams, and get their license.</p>
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