My grandson was sitting next to me at dinner a few nights ago. Across from us a woman asked him about his thoughts concerning college. It was a natural question since he's a junior on his way to being a senior in high school.
I could hear the next question before it was said, “What are you thinking of studying?” Now this young man is Hoosier born and breaded. He knows the Indiana General Assembly doesn’t want him going to college and then not make as much money as is humanly possible.
How can he chew on his pizza and think about a future occupation based on a field of study at a yet to be known college? But he didn’t disappoint me.He provided an appropriate answer which I promptly forgot because I was thinking of the difficulty of anticipating the future.
Twenty years ago, manufacturing was about 11% of all American jobs. Today, its about 9%, after losing 1.6 million jobs. Back then, we had seen what we thought was a temporary retrenchment of employment in computer and electronic products. It had been called the “dot com bubble.”
Who knew it was not temporary? That we would lose nearly 300,000 jobs in that sector and another 120,000 in motor vehicle, bodies, trailers and parts? Unthinkable! Equally beyond our comprehension then was that 300,000 jobs were to be lost in the next two decades in printing and its support activities.
Could anyone of us forecast that the only bright spot in American manufacturing was food, beverage and tobacco products, where 370,000 jobs would be gained? That the growth over the next 20 years would include 960,000 jobs in wholesale and retail activities?
Yes, we knew the demographic wave of the baby boomers would hit, but why should it be such a negative jolt? Over those 20 years, we’d see 7.6 million more jobs in health care and social assistance. Weren’t those Golden Years to be wonderful, not tied up in problems of the body and soul?
And how did we miss the need for 1.6 million “foreign professional workers and undocumented Mexican migratory workers employed temporarily in the United States”?
Now here’s my grandson, fully aware of the warnings:, Artificial Intelligence is going to destroy millions of jobs. In particular, AI will wipe out entry level jobs that used to go to recent graduates from high schools and colleges.
My advice would be, listen to your baseball coach. Keep your mind in the game. Watch the pitches coming in and be ready when you go up to the plate. You will not hit a home run every time, but a well struck ball to the outfield could score a run and win the game.