Opinion The disapering of blue collar workers?

[LeonardoBjj]

- I think i can assume we've all seen the demonization of manual laborers on social media. People look down on the man responsoble for them having a hoof over their head. I also assumer thats was common to us ol., more mature gentleman, to have constructed a tree house and a rolimã in the or childreenhood, a dog house here and there. Now it's pretty clear those type of things are a activities of the past, i observe that my nephew never owned a set of tools. Besides his uncle of course.

Throughout the long history of technology and employment debates, blue-collar jobs have been widely predicted to be one of the biggest losers to technological change. Blue-collar jobs are commonly defined as those requiring significant manual labour, often involving mechanical skills to operate machines, but the term has acquired several connotations over time, including a worker's social-economic status, level of training and qualifications, and types of work (see Wickman, 2012). Blue-collar work, therefore, varies from unskilled manual tasks requiring no formal education to highly skilled and trade qualified ones (Mittal et al., 2019; Rayner, 2018). They include production (e.g., machine operators), craft (e.g., trade occupations), repair (e.g., maintenance occupations) and cleaning (e.g., labourer) occupations. In this respect, Wroblewski (2019) divides blue-collar work into those requiring non or basic skills and those requiring extensive training and higher skills.

According to the literature, the vulnerability of blue-collar jobs to technological change stems from, first, the competitive pressure to reduce the labour costs associated with labour-intensive industries through advances in robotics, automation, and AI technologies. Secondl the supposed superiority of technology to labour in performance efficiency, and reliability in noncognitive and routinised blue-collar work (e.g., Acemoglu & Autor, 2011; Arntz et al., 2016; Autor, 2015; Eurofound, 2018; Fernández-Macías, 2017; Frey & Osborne, 2013). These arguments, and predictions of imminent technological decimation of blue-collar jobs, go back many decades. Jeremy Rifkin, for example, argued in his seminal book, The End of Work, that ‘by the mid-21st Century, the blue-collar worker will have passed from history, a casualty of the Third Industrial Revolution’ (1995, p. 140). Such views are still common among more recent studies of Industry 4.0 and advanced manufacturing but are also found among studies of future of work in other traditional blue-collar industries including transport and logistics (T&L). According to the 2020 World Economic Forum (WEF) Report on the Future of Work, for example, the key future jobs in T&L include AI and machine learning specialists, digital analysts and scientists, software and applications developers and supply chain and logistics specialists rather than the'traditional’ occupations such as transport drivers, forklift operators and postal service clerks (WEF, 2020, p. 148). Despite these predictions many traditional blue-collar jobs, including those in T&L, are in strong demand across many countries with employers struggling to find workers willing to perform this study (see Cohen, 2021).https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ntwe.12259

- Troght mankind history, construction workers have been the important fundantion of the developing of nations. Butr have them always bee looked down?

To the average, dumb, soap opera watching person, lying a seet of bricks and concreting is seen as a unskiled job. But those of us that have tried to lift a wall or a fence, know how much work goes in lifting one that can stay up for years.

The National Trend in Blue-Collar Employment

In 1970, blue-collar jobs were 31.2 percent of total nonfarm employment. By 2016, their share had fallen to 13.6 percent of total employment. While blue-collar jobs have been declining as a share of total employment over this whole period, this was mostly due to the growth in total employment. The number of blue-collar jobs did not change much through most of this period. In 2000 there were 24.6 million blue-collar jobs, only slightly below the peak of 25.0 million in 1979. However the numbers plunged in the next decade due to the impact of the exploding trade deficit and the 2008-2009 recession. Blue-collar jobs fell to 17.8 million in 2010 and have since rebounded modestly to 19.6 million in the most recent data.

The National Trend in Manufacturing Jobs

Most of the secular change in blue-collar jobs has been in manufacturing. The figure below shows both the absolute number of manufacturing jobs (in millions) and manufacturing’s share of total nonfarm employment from 1970 to 2016. During the 70s, 80s, and 90s, the number of manufacturing jobs basically held steady, with about 17 to 19 million workers being employed in the sector each year. Manufacturing employment then declined every single year from 1998 to 2010. At present there are just 12.3 million manufacturing jobs in the United States.

Construction Fluctuates Cyclically, With No Secular Trend

Construction follows a somewhat different pattern. Construction employment is highly cyclical following patterns in the housing market, following the ups and downs in the business cycle, but it has little clear secular trend. In 2016, 4.7 percent of the workforce was employed in construction (6.7 million workers), with the figure heading upward over the course of the year. This is down from the 5.2 percent figure for 1970, but not out of line with the average for that decade.

The National Trend in Mining Jobs

Mining employment has largely followed the path of world energy prices as the bulk of employment in the sector is energy-related. Employment in the sector rose through the 1970s and peaked in 1982 at 1.2 percent of total employment. The collapse in world energy prices sent employment in the sector sharply lower in the next two decades, with employment in mining falling to just 0.4 percent of total employment in 1998. Higher energy prices and the fracking boom increased mining employment from 2003 until 2014. Since then, the plunge in energy prices sharply reduced employment, so it again stands at just 0.4 percent of total employment, with 626,000 total jobs in the sector.

- Lou Ferrigno and Arnold were proud brick layers
If the supply of workers interested in working in blue-collar jobs was growing as rapidly as demand, we would not have a problem. But in reality, the supply of workers for blue-collar jobs has been shrinking. People with a college degree are very unlikely to end up working in a blue-collar job, partly due to the stigma attached to manual labor. This is especially true in a tight labor market like the one the US is currently experiencing. The number of people in the labor force without a college degree could be used as a rough proxy of potential labor supply for blue-collar jobs. But as shown in the previous blog, this group of workers has been shrinking in recent years and will likely shrink even more rapidly in the coming decade.

Why is the supply of workers interested in blue-collar jobs shrinking?

The US working-age population has gotten more educated over time, with the share of the working-age population with no college degree declining significantly. Also, in recent years, an unusually large share of workers in blue-collar occupations have been retiring. This combination of many retirements and few new entrants is significantly reducing the supply of workers for blue-collar occupations. Since 2012, the number and share of people without a college degree has been shrinking. People with a college degree are much less likely to look for a blue-collar job.

https://cepr.net/publications/the-decline-of-blue-collar-jobs-in-graphs/

https://www.conference-board.org/re...ollar-Labor-Markets-Tighter-Than-White-Collar

Less educated Americans are much more likely not to be in the labor force due to disability.

The increasing share of more educated people in the US labor force is not just because the US population is becoming more educated. It is also because more non-college graduates are leaving the labor force due to disability. The increase in disability rates, partly because of the opioid epidemic, are much more concentrated in the population without a college degree and is therefore having a larger impact on the supply of workers to blue-collar and low-paid service occupations.

To be continued:

 

[LeonardoBjj]

The combination of the US population becoming more educated and the concentration of disability among less educated people is significantly reducing the share of less educated people in the labor force.https://www.conference-board.org/research/labor-markets-briefs/Blue-Collar-Labor-Markets-Tighter-Than-White-Collar

- Thats a part thats gets always me. Arent guys pround of building their own house or fixing their cars?

Super-Man was a preound farmer and Batman always had pride of being a god mechanic. Spider-Man created his own uniform for fs. Why do those nerds look down on those professions?

Blue collar workers, they stil have to develop a set of skills, being eletricians or contructing building. We even have those courses, but people that search for them, are usualy already on those fields.

“Job One for Democrats: Winning Back Blue-Collar Votes,” proclaimed one recent Wall Street Journal article. Another in The New York Times stated, “There’s No Boom in Youngstown, but Blue-Collar Workers Are Sticking With Trump.”

But when manufacturing jobs disappear, there are deeper social impacts that extend beyond the labor market to family and household relationships and have generational consequences. A paper in the American Economic Review: Insights explores how marriage prospects change for young men when demand for manufacturing labor declines.

Authors David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson found that young male workers suffered disproportionately from rising trade pressure from China. They had greater wage losses compared to female counterparts, and as a result, appear to become less attractive to potential partners. As a result, both men and women in these impacted areas are increasingly choosing not to marry.

By Erik Eckholm

JACKSON, Ohio After 30 years at a factory making truck parts, Jeffrey Evans was earning $14.55 an hour in what he called “one of the better-paying jobs in the area.”

Wearing a Harley-Davidson cap, a bittersweet reminder of crushed dreams, he recently described how astonished and betrayed he felt when the plant was shut down in August after a labor dispute. Despite sporadic construction work, Mr. Evans has seen his income reduced by half.

So he was astonished yet again to find himself, at age 49, selling off his cherished Harley and most of his apartment furniture and moving in with his mother.

Middle-aged men moving in with parents, wives taking two jobs, veteran workers taking overnight shifts at half their former pay, families moving West these are signs of the turmoil and stresses emerging in the little towns and backwoods mobile homes of southeast Ohio, where dozens of factories and several coal mines have closed over the last decade, and small businesses are giving way to big-box retailers and fast-food outlets.

Slammed by the continued decline in the automobile and steel businesses, Ohio never recovered from the recession of 2001-2, and blue-collar families who had made it partway up the economic ladder find themselves slipping back, with chaotic effects on families and dreams.

Throughout the state, the percentage of families living below the poverty line just over $20,000 for a family of four last year rose slightly from 14 percent in 2005 to 16 percent in 2007, one study found. But equally striking is the rise in younger working families struggling above that line. The numbers are more dismal in the southeastern Appalachian part of the state, where 32 percent of families lived below the poverty line in 2007, according to the study, and 56 percent lived with incomes less than $40,000 for a family of four.
“These younger workers should be the backbone of the economy,” said Shiloh Turner, study director for the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, which conducted the surveys. But in parts of Ohio, Ms. Turner said, half or more “are barely making ends meet.”

​

Between her husband’s factory job and her intermittent work, they made $30,000 a year in the best of times, Mrs. Joos said. Since last fall, when her husband was laid off by the Merillat cabinet factory, which downsized to one shift a day from three, keeping anywhere near that income required Mrs. Joos to take a second job. She works at a school cafeteria each weekday from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m and then drives to Wal-Mart, where she relaxes in her car before starting her 2-to-10 p.m. shift at the deli counter.

Her 20-year-old son went to college for two years, earning an associate degree in information science, but cannot find any jobs nearby. He still works at McDonald’s and lives at home as he ponders whether to move to a distant city, as most local college graduates must. Her 22-year-old son works at Burger King and lives with his grandparents “that was his way of moving out,” Mrs. Joos said.

In late December her husband landed a new job, driving a fork lift at a Wal-Mart distribution center, a shift that ends at 2:30 a.m. It pays a little less than he used to make and is an hour’s drive away, so gasoline soaks up a painful share of his wages.

“We never see each other,” Mrs. Joos, 45, said on a recent morning as she packed a roast beef and cheese sandwich for her evening meal. “We never even think of taking a vacation.”

Luckily they had paid off their mobile home and an addition they built.

As experienced men in this corner of Ohio have found themselves working for lower wages, others feel they must move.

“I’m ain’t going to work for no $8 an hour!” said Lindsey Webb, 52, who, like Mr. Evans, was one of hundreds laid off when Meridian Automotive Systems closed its local plant. On a recent night, Mr. Webb was helping out in a trailer in front of the old factory, a vigil by the United Steelworkers Union to remind the company of its obligations to former workers.

Mr. Webb, who worked at the plant for 33 years, made more than $16 an hour doing machine maintenance. Now he is thinking of moving to Arizona, taking along his elderly father, whom he helps care for.

Darrel McKenzie, 44, was also a maintenance man at Meridian and grossed more than $60,000 a year. Now he has restarted at the bottom as a union pipe-fitting apprentice and expects to make $20,000 this year. His family just “does less,” Mr. McKenzie said.

Mr. Evans said that moving back into the home where he grew up, after decades of independence, was a stinging reminder that “I lost everything I worked for all my life.”

His mother, Shirley Sheline, 73, had worked 28 years at the same auto parts plant, and shares his dismay. “Can you believe it, a grown man forced to move back with his mother,” she said.

Seeing his desperation last year, she added a room to her house with a separate door.

“I don’t know what I’d have done without my mom,” Mr. Evans said. “At least I can help her, or if I get back on my feet, she can rent it out.”

By contrast, selling his Harley, which he would have paid off this year, was pure torture. He had owned a Harley since he was 20, and weekend cruising with pals was his favorite recreation.

“The buyer said he wanted to take it away in the back of a trailer,” Mr. Evans recalled, “and I said, ‘That won’t happen.’ ”

“Instead I drove it to his house, threw him the keys, came home and got drunk.”https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/...gin&adxnnlx=1230094241-JnkL1/5QLZyJDFq0mHGbcw

- People that enter the building field here, usualy make more money than white colar jobs. Because the demand for a construction worker, far surpass the demand of a TI worker. But several of those contruction workers cant make what we call "Pe´de meia", sox-feet? Since several of them spend on alcool, and doesnt know how to invest, because they make more moneyu, so they think they will continue to have a money surpluss.

What my research pointed is that the field, even thought doesnt atrack new young workers, has a age cap of 35/45 years, so when those man left the field or movie to a managfer position as they invest in study, theres no one to fell the older job position.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/16/perspectives/remote-work-blue-collar

 

[rearnakedchoke]

I know the trades are a great option for the most part.

 

[Ara tech]

It will only get worse.

Western corporations left the west, for the third world, where the workforce is a lot cheaper = less jobs = more joblessness
AI & Robots are coming, less needed humans = less jobs = more joblessness

The corporations are the only one who will be the winners in the world of tomorrow

 

[method115]

It will only get worse.

Western corporations left the west, for the third world, where the workforce is a lot cheaper = less jobs = more joblessness
AI & Robots are coming, less needed humans = less jobs = more joblessness

The corporations are the only one who will be the winners in the world of tomorrow

Are AI and Robots coming? Cause lately I've been hearing talks that the AI bubble is about to pop. People are realizing it's not going to make the leaps and jumps they expected and have sort of reached the limit of what it can do for now.

 

[RemyR]

It will only get worse.

Western corporations left the west, for the third world, where the workforce is a lot cheaper = less jobs = more joblessness
AI & Robots are coming, less needed humans = less jobs = more joblessness

The corporations are the only one who will be the winners in the world of tomorrow

Ironically enough, AI seems to be replacing the desk type jobs more than physical labor. Kind of contradictory to everything I grew up hearing. In a way it's been sort of satisfying that these guys telling everyone "learn to code" are being replaced by AI coders. Not to celebrate anyone losing their job it's just sort of ironic. I honestly think that some blue color work like trades will be among the last to go. AI will definitely make work more efficient but you will always want human oversight in areas like this, medical care, and policing.

 

[USA!USA!]

There is a lot more dignity in blue collar work than white collar work.

There is a lot to be said for being on your feet and moving throughout the day versus sitting in a chair for 8 hours. Probably a lot better for you too physically and maybe even mentally.

Can't do it all your life though - its hard work. But I think they all deserve more dignity and respect.

 

[Thrawn33]

After 23 years of Coast Guarding, I will stand by my one regret is not following in my father's footsteps in the trades (he's a Master Plumber...going on 50 years now in the trade...)

Me and him didn't work well together, but some of his guys I would've been happy to apprentice under...and now they're rolling in cash with their own businesses.

Plumbing is one of those few services your average Joe can't live without. People can wait till the next morning with no electricity, HVAC, or gas...but when you have no water to wash or flush...or when the sewage is coming out of your toilet, you pay the 24/7 repair guy what he asks

 

[SandisLL]

Are AI and Robots coming? Cause lately I've been hearing talks that the AI bubble is about to pop. People are realizing it's not going to make the leaps and jumps they expected and have sort of reached the limit of what it can do for now.

AI isn't intellect.
It is advanced machine learning and jobs it will reduce mainly are in.....offices!

 

[SandisLL]

Ofc they will need someone in offices and not for fun.
To have someone to sent to court, talk with tax specialists, investigators etc and peace of meat maybe for prison.
Someone will pay...

 

[Satsui Ryu]

I know the trades are a great option for the most part.

I feel like they are a good option under certain circumstances like being in a good union or owning a business.

There is a lot more dignity in blue collar work than white collar work.

There is a lot to be said for being on your feet and moving throughout the day versus sitting in a chair for 8 hours. Probably a lot better for you too physically and maybe even mentally.

Can't do it all your life though - its hard work. But I think they all deserve more dignity and respect.

This is why I like being in IT. Definitely a white collar job, but there are times where I do have to get physical and get dirty. It is like the best of both worlds. To the point above, being on IT career boards I see a lot of questions about transitioning from trades to IT.

 

[SandisLL]

After 23 years of Coast Guarding, I will stand by my one regret is not following in my father's footsteps in the trades (he's a Master Plumber...going on 50 years now in the trade...)

Me and him didn't work well together, but some of his guys I would've been happy to apprentice under...and now they're rolling in cash with their own businesses.

Plumbing is one of those few services your average Joe can't live without. People can wait till the next morning with no electricity, HVAC, or gas...but when you have no water to wash or flush...or when the sewage is coming out of your toilet, you pay the 24/7 repair guy what he asks

You still might learn and get papers. Why not? It isn't MD type stuff....especially if dad still is active in field.

Also plumbers are used in new stuff construction ....

 

[Ara tech]

Are AI and Robots coming? Cause lately I've been hearing talks that the AI bubble is about to pop. People are realizing it's not going to make the leaps and jumps they expected and have sort of reached the limit of what it can do for now.

That's different.

Most techies, and dreamers, are driven by enthusiasm, and not by reality. That is why a lot of companies have invested millions/billions in AI & technology without even gaining back a single cent, they were afraid of losing a golden opportunity, they were afraid of missing out something big, they were afraid of not being ahead of their competitors, in the end, they realized their mistakes. In fact, enthusiasm is one of the best way to draw investors into your ventures. A lot of scams use that too.

Your point is AI & Robots really coming to replace most workers ? The answer is yes and no. There is a big reset, a big revolution that is coming, nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, AI, IoT, cashless society, biometrics, and even the early stage of transhumanism. The world is not gonna change in the blink of an eye, but under your nose, not behind your back.

Corporations are greedy, and profit oriented. Robots do not sleep, eat, drink, and have need to go to the toilet, don't get sick, do not complain, do not make union, and do not ask for a salary. It was always a wet dream for corpos, to replace almost all workers by docile loyal machines, in the short term, not profitable, but in the long run, yes, that is why they are pushing that agenda and investing millions/billions in AI & robots to take over.

However, you are right, there are still a century of progress, that will be needed, for development, to attain a futuristic society who will look like more a cyberpunk funky universe than an utopia.

In fact, AI & Robots will not replace all jobs, only certain of them, Robots lack versality to be able to outperform humans, in complex environments and scenarios.

What will happen is something else, most corporations will create zero trust like infrastructure, even for the least important worker, technology will make the work place a productivity run, under perform for a few days and you will get a warning, under perform more you will get kick.

The invading aspect of technology, will not be first about replacing the human by the machine, but the machine assisting or monitoring the human. In a dangerous area, in a factory, workers could be forced to wear bracelet/wristband, that will monitor their heartbeat, if one of them pass-out, it will trigger an alarm. It's a billions of dollars industry, machine and robots and AI will assist humans first, for security mostly, then it will be to monitor their productivity and assisting them in the workplace.

What get measured can get improved.

In summary, some jobs, will be replaced by machine and robots, all the remaining, are likely to not be replaced, only providing additional security, assisting, and assessing productivity. That is what is going to happen for both white collar or blue collar men.

That is the trap, technology did not free man from work, but will make him a slave to another.

Some people made a list of which jobs are going to be / are likely to be taken away by AI and robots or be impacted by them. But that is not gonna happen, at least, in the next 20 years, to digitalize an infrastructure of a business cost a lot of money, and with it the cyber security risk who costs also a lot of money. The small corporations, medium corporations, will not take that road swiftly since they will not be able to.

If someone is a capable engineer, surgeon, expert, PHD, double masters, really qualified man or woman, he is likely to get a high job or to keep his current one. For who is a workforce, there will still be workforce needed in factory and others areas such as mines, but their numbers will be reduced, as the far we go from men with technology, the less we need them.

Whatever will happen, it will never be sun and rainbows, at least for the common man who will fear losing his petty job if he ever obtain one. Globalization will make him compete with all workers over the world, and there is always a guy from the third world, who the worst day of your life is better than the best day of his life in whatever shithole he came from.

Joblessness will not simply be created by AI & robots taking replacing humans workers.
AI & robots will monitor productivity in the future, those who will burnout, or underperform will be lose their jobs.
AI & Robots will reduce the amount of needed workers in most workplace.
Globalization, and migrants, will make the average joe compete with the whole world, there is always a guy who is willing to work twice than you for twice less without vacations, which means that he is most likely to lose his job, as it will be given to someone else, of that caliber.

The only people on earth who will be able to keep their jobs with ease, are the one with rare and extremely advanced and extremely useful skills. And for the average joe, the job of being a teacher/trainer or a barber, these two jobs are the only one who will never change, at least for the last 50 years. (According to some futurologist)

 

[Ara tech]

Ironically enough, AI seems to be replacing the desk type jobs more than physical labor. Kind of contradictory to everything I grew up hearing. In a way it's been sort of satisfying that these guys telling everyone "learn to code" are being replaced by AI coders. Not to celebrate anyone losing their job it's just sort of ironic. I honestly think that some blue color work like trades will be among the last to go. AI will definitely make work more efficient but you will always want human oversight in areas like this, medical care, and policing.

Most people who talks about IT barely do not know what IT is.

I will tell you something, there are two things : The human factor & Technology.

Technology is a variable, the human factor a constant.

A human from the 9 st century is still the same than a human from the 21 century. But the technology aspect of course is very very different. Now that you understand, which is obvious, there is something else to know.

I saw a lot of people, being told, take the IT road, to get a job. Why ? The digitalization of society, the needs for IT guys, cybercrime and cyberterrorism, AI, digial society and infrastructure, blablabla.

The problem with IT, it's evolving at fast pace. You could be the best IT on earth, your current skillset in 2025, will be worthless in 2035 mostly, technology evolves, an IT guy first con is that he has to follow constantly that train, who goes at a speed that depends on the new trends and evolution of technology.

Another problem with IT, most people will learn easy soft skills, to get a salary. Which is a mistake, simply because, let's say you learn JAVA or PHP, or Python, it will be hard to make a living out of it, simply because there are tons of chinese / indians students who will learn it fast, and part time will try to make money out of it, and will maintain the salary down.

If you want heavy money with IT, or a good job, you need to have rare and advanced skills, that take 4 6 years of 10 12 hours a day studying almost everyday. To reach a point, where you won't be paid by the hour, but by your skills.

The more something is easy to learn, the less it has value on the market, simply because many will be able to learn it fast, and try to make money out of it. As the opposite of hard advanced skills, that only the elite master, elite skills that most people give up learning in the process.

Besides, when someone is saying, I'm gonna do IT, I'm gonna be an IT guy, it's not a good sign, there are tons of different jobs related to IT, without precision and isolation, they will never go far. The pro of IT is that you can learn on your own as an autodidact, but there are a lot of cons, and it's not for everyone.

I don't recommand IT to people, especially those who only know it by the name.

 

[Islam Imamate]

- I think i can assume we've all seen the demonization of manual laborers on social media. People look down on the man responsoble for them having a hoof over their head. I also assumer thats was comon to us ol., more mature gentleman, to have constructed a tre house and a roliã in the ir childreenhood, a dog house here and there. Now it's pretty clear those type of things are a activities of the past, i observe that my nephew never owned a set of tools. Besides his uncle of course.

- Troght mankind history, construction workers have been the important fundantion of the developing of nations. Butr have them always bee looked down?

To the average, dumb, soap opera watching person, lying a seet of bricks and concreting is seen as a unskiled job. But those of us that have tried to lift a wall or a fence, know how much work goes in lifting one that can stay up for years.

Construction Fluctuates Cyclically, With No Secular Trend

Construction follows a somewhat different pattern. Construction employment is highly cyclical following patterns in the housing market, following the ups and downs in the business cycle, but it has little clear secular trend. In 2016, 4.7 percent of the workforce was employed in construction (6.7 million workers), with the figure heading upward over the course of the year. This is down from the 5.2 percent figure for 1970, but not out of line with the average for that decade.

The National Trend in Mining Jobs

Mining employment has largely followed the path of world energy prices as the bulk of employment in the sector is energy-related. Employment in the sector rose through the 1970s and peaked in 1982 at 1.2 percent of total employment. The collapse in world energy prices sent employment in the sector sharply lower in the next two decades, with employment in mining falling to just 0.4 percent of total employment in 1998. Higher energy prices and the fracking boom increased mining employment from 2003 until 2014. Since then, the plunge in energy prices sharply reduced employment, so it again stands at just 0.4 percent of total employment, with 626,000 total jobs in the sector.

- Lou Ferrigno and Arnold were proud brick layers
If the supply of workers interested in working in blue-collar jobs was growing as rapidly as demand, we would not have a problem. But in reality, the supply of workers for blue-collar jobs has been shrinking. People with a college degree are very unlikely to end up working in a blue-collar job, partly due to the stigma attached to manual labor. This is especially true in a tight labor market like the one the US is currently experiencing. The number of people in the labor force without a college degree could be used as a rough proxy of potential labor supply for blue-collar jobs. But as shown in the previous blog, this group of workers has been shrinking in recent years and will likely shrink even more rapidly in the coming decade.

Why is the supply of workers interested in blue-collar jobs shrinking?

https://cepr.net/publications/the-decline-of-blue-collar-jobs-in-graphs/

https://www.conference-board.org/re...ollar-Labor-Markets-Tighter-Than-White-Collar

Less educated Americans are much more likely not to be in the labor force due to disability.

The increasing share of more educated people in the US labor force is not just because the US population is becoming more educated. It is also because more non-college graduates are leaving the labor force due to disability. The increase in disability rates, partly because of the opioid epidemic, are much more concentrated in the population without a college degree and is therefore having a larger impact on the supply of workers to blue-collar and low-paid service occupations.

To be continued:

You're from Brazil right? I think the class distinction is far more pronounced over there, we in the US really don't have that kind of class based elitism.

In fact we kind of have the opposite as the phrase "blue collar" has positive connotations here to the point that office workers will buy a pick up truck and cowboy hat to LARP as "blue collar" or "rural"

In the US people like to downplay their wealth because flaunting class status is a massive faux pas. So as a rule upper class folks call themselves upper middle class, upper middle class folks call themselves middle class, middle class folks call themselves lower middle class, the lower middle class call themselves working class, and the actual working class call themselves poor while everyone else is rich.

 

[SandisLL]

I had learned programming fundamentals with ASM type stuff.
I had 0 intent to work in IT then....0.
When I was college/ uni type guy, I had used option to learn some modules for free...stuff like automata theory and formal grammar...with credit hours from BSc in Computer science program.

I had did stuff like for warehouses programms and DB because then I had good and nice boss .... my primary task was to sell construction materials... this. However they had improwed stuff for warehouses.....they had paid and in time...for this additonal job.

I hate Agile. I want requirements signed month before and delivery terms too.
Not marketing type mesh.

 

[Thrawn33]

You still might learn and get papers. Why not? It isn't MD type stuff....especially if dad still is active in field.

Also plumbers are used in new stuff construction ....

Not ruling it out, but settled in a different state now, and while I can start over from scratch, at 40-something I'm not quite the spring chicken and would be a not the smartest thing to ignore the skills I have already proven to posses.

That said...anything is possible. Kind of liberating .

 

[SandisLL]

Not ruling it out, but settled in a different state now, and while I can start over from scratch, at 40-something I'm not quite the spring chicken and would be a not the smartest thing to ignore the skills I have already proven to posses.

That said...anything is possible. Kind of liberating .

During koronka ( jargon for coronavirus plan pandemic ), I jad get about plumbers in ONE from my locations...
One working pensioner. Normal.
Next 55 y.o
Next...young and in reality cocky guy. With me he was normal and polite, maybe cos I had supplied schemes on A4 paper.
Normal if someone is telling him what stuff he should do. Then he calm down and is happy. He is plumber with papers and additional courses.. without master etc he isn't usable....
EU beauty btw.
While he isn't bad if someone will guide guy what to do.

 

[HockeyBjj]

We are constantly hiring union electricians here in Illinois, for what its worth

 

[panamaican]

It's the nature of work. But there's also a lot of monday morning quarterbacking on this subject. When everyone didn't go to college and the cost of college was much lower and we were outsourcing factories to Asia for cheaper labor, the balance between blue collar and white collar work shifted in favor of white collar work and that was appropriate.

Now that college is extremely expensive and we've already outsourced the low hanging blue collar work, the balance is starting to shift back. In 20 years it will probably shift again. Then you'll have a bunch of people in the trades complaining that they can't find a job and the market is oversaturated while their parents tell them stories about easy it was for them to enter the workforce with the same skills.

What's valuable in the work world is constantly shifting. It's poor planning to assume that any shift is permanent. Kids shouldn't be planning to go down either road until they get closer to high school graduation.