Career choices
Jim Thompson
By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
Looking at a 16-year-old, such as my oldest grandson, I am at a loss as to what to suggest as a career choice (not that he has asked me).
In my lifetime, machine tools have gone from manual operation to what was called CNC (Computer Numerical Control) to just plain computer control. So has nearly every other industrial machine (I can wax on endlessly about paper machines). I read this week where Amazon has replaced half the warehouse workers of just a few years ago with robots.
Freight trains have gone from an engineer, fireman and one or two workers in a caboose for a 100-car train to an engineer, possibly a second, and trains 200 cars long. No caboose.
Along in my lifetime, came desktop computers, computer aided design (which replaced drafting boards) and the internet.
Autos and trucks are becoming self-driving and robo-taxis are not unusual in number of cities now.
I am beginning to think the Luddites were correct. They were the people in England that tried to destroy powered looms which they thought were taking their jobs. That was over 200 years ago.
Now, along comes Artificial Intelligence (AI). It promises to do our thinking and our research for us – and it will exceed to a certain extent.
If you look at photographs from the 1960s of major banks or insurance companies, they had floor after floor of skyscrapers full of people sitting at desk and operating calculators. This was replaced by computers, but now AI will largely take out a significant portion of the people who are left operating the computers.
When was the last time you knew a currently employed telephone operator? Routine tasks and thinking have been wiped out in one or two generations. So, what do you tell the 16-year-old today if they happen to ask you?
The jobs of brawn will likely continue to exist in construction, maintenance and to a certain extent, farming.
The jobs of brains will be the deep-thinking jobs – medical research and the like.
The brawn and the brains will likely both take advanced training.
The non-specialized jobs and many of the formerly semi-skilled jobs are lost in the world we have built since World War II.
Start preparing early.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.
I've thought about this too.
In Highland County, Ohio, a forward-thinking 16-year-old should take 4 to 8 college classes in the post-secondary education program at SSCC. The 18-year-old man should enlist in the military. The U.S. Navy probably has the most technical and mechanical jobs and training of all the services. When a 22- or 26-year-old veteran enters the civilian work force or they might fall back on some "higher education" path. Either way, they're set-up rather well. A solid job skill and work ethic for a grateful and industrious employer. Or they have a GI Bill to weave through the mess of a modern-day education. At least the non-traditional student has already earned the costs it takes to endure an arbitrary college degree. No loans, no debt, and the student will probably already know more than the faculty that taught them.