On Fri, 30 Aug 2013 09:55:18 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:
In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:
On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 18:56:32 -0400, Steve Walker
wrote:
On 8/29/2013 18:00, wrote:
SNIP
i
The computer still cannot drive nails and dig ditches. Your "lower
intelligence" people can make very good wages as skilled laborers and
tradesmen that will not be replaced by computers in their lifetimes,
or their children's lifetimes.
True. However, the youth of today has been conditioned into believing
they must strive for the very high paying, non physical labor type of
jobs. Unfortunately, as is the same for all the athletes who base their
future on becoming a pro, there aren't enough openings are available.
You must be VERY good at what you do, have a few connections, and have a
backup plan in case you don't succeed in achieving the elite status you
desire. Most do not.
And there are more unemployed IT and computer science geeks out there
than there are unemployed electricians, plumbers, millrights,
mechanics, etc.
True. Those trades cannot be outsourced.
Myth. The jobs that have consistently low unemployment numbers are the
"very high paying, non physical labor type of jobs."
Here are the actual unemployment figures for the jobs mentioned, from
a Wall Street Journal analysis of Bureau of Labor Stastics figures
from 2012:
Electrician 11.2%
Plumber 10.2%
Millright 6.9%
Automotive mechanics 7.9%
The national average at that time was 7.8%. Here are the geek jobs
mentioned above:
Computer scientists and systems analysts 3.6%
Computer and IT managers 3.2%
And so it goes. Computer hardware engineers, 1.9%. Biomedical
engineers, 0.4%. Brick and stone masons, 18.8%.
The kids have been "conditioned" right.
http://tinyurl.com/apejd2o
This data goes back to 2011.
That's data reported in Jan. 2013, from employment figures for 2012.
During the current recession, the
building trades got hit pretty hard. Engineering is less cyclical.
During any recession, building trades are almost ALWAYS hit hard. They
are highly unstable jobs, depending a great deal on home sales and
business building investment rates -- which swing like a yo-yo.
One big dip was after the Soviet Union died: The engineering trade
rags were full of doom-and-gloom, and letters from people emigrating to
Australia (which at the time had an open immigration policy for
high-skill people). The nationwide engineering unemployment rate had
quadrupled! -- it went from about 1% to about 4%.
Engineering and related jobs are much more stable than building
trades, but anything related to manufacturing is also vulnerable to
rates of consumer sales.
To fill out the picture, it's useful to also know the number of people
in the various job categories. For instance, there has to be a factor
of ten more electricians than electrical engineers.
Joe Gwinn
That's easy to determine, Joe. The Bureau of Labor Statistics produces
vast amounts of data, which I've used in my research for close to 40
years.
--
Ed Huntress