Take some time to watch this video from the BLS about the
near term future of jobs in the US (1).
You will notice in the video that most appear to be jobs
that are medically related. Which makes some sense when you think of the fact
that the Boomers are aging and with age comes medical needs. But also there are
Wind Turbine Technicians. Really Wind Turbines are going to become a big
industry with oil being so cheap now? I guess the BLS knows something we do not
know.
So here is the dilemma…
You are just getting out of high school, and are planning to
go to college but what should you study? Obviously something in the health
field right now because for the next twenty years it will have the most jobs
and pay the most on average.
But medical school is not cheap. So you will borrow to get
the education, but what happens if everyone else is thinking the same? What
will happen if a whole generation of students go for the same career only to
find themselves not employed due to an overcrowded market.
Right now oil is down because of an economic principle of
supply and demand, and this same principal applies to labor as well (both
physically in total numbers but also micro-wise in specific fields). So as the
supply of graduating students increases in a specific job field, in theory the entry
wages of that job field should decline due to oversupply. Going forward since
the entry wages are depressed, the future wages will also become depressed
since wages tend to increase as a percentage of past wages. Long term resultant
is an increase possibility of lower incomes for those who now are up to their
eyeballs in educational debt.
Now I am not saying this observation is absolutely true or
not, but it seems to me that it does economically make sense.
This is something to ponder as we come closer to the
Presidential Election in the U.S. We all should be asking ourselves “What is
the plan for dealing with College Debt and ensuring that college graduates can
get the income needed to pay that debt off in a timely fashion without jeopardizing
the health of the economic overall”.
Citation
(1) BLS (2015). Fastest Growing Occupations 2014-24. YouTube Video.
Retrieved from https://youtu.be/LIvxuRb47y4.
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