Want a Job? Ditch The Degree And Pick Up A Trade

Authored by Roslyn Kunin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

At over 7 percent, the unemployment rate in Canada is the highest it has been in a decade. For those under 25, it surpasses 14 percent. This is a real challenge for young people at the beginning of their working lives. The usual rules for getting started on a promising career no longer seem to apply.

A university degree does not open doors the way it used to. There are many more university graduates than there are openings that require this qualification, and this does not even consider the mismatch that exists between the fields of the vacant positions and those of the graduates.

The government has reacted to this sad situation by severely curtailing the number of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) allowed into Canada, presumably to save jobs for unemployed Canadians. It may not work. TFWs have been brought into Canada to fill jobs that, even in times of high unemployment, Canadians would not fill.

Agricultural workers are an example. Youth (and older workers) are reluctant to take seasonal jobs that require long hours of demanding physical labour outdoors for the rates of pay that our food-producing sector can afford.

TFWs also play a big role in entry-level service jobs, another area that is hard to fill with Canadians, especially if they have a university degree. Finding Canadians for these jobs is particularly acute in smaller centres and more remote locations.

Not only are the jobs left unfilled by reducing TFWs unattractive to most Canadians, but many of the more attractive jobs are now, or soon will be, replaced by AI. Older workers will recall how swathes of lower-level white-collar jobs, such as secretaries and clerks, were eliminated by the introduction of computers.

Now the work of higher-level positions can be done by AI. This includes junior executives, many mid-level management positions, and any position that has the word agent or broker in the title—areas where many aspiring leaders got their start. Now it is even harder to find any openings.

There are still good jobs in desirable locations that pay well, where vacancies tend to exceed job seekers and which will be difficult or impossible for AI to replace. Most Canadians do not even consider these opportunities or are barely aware of them.

The people needed now and into the future are trades workers, technicians, and technologists. Also needed are people who can provide a level of human contact that machines cannot offer in medicine and other areas.

Use the phrase “hands-on” to determine which occupations are safe from an AI takeover. AI cannot fix a leaky pipe or wire a new building. It cannot deliver a baby.

Nor can AI create and maintain the physical underpinnings of our 21st-century world. For this, technicians and technologists are required. Right now, there are openings for technicians and technologists in engineering at all levels and also in design, maintenance, inspection, project management, and other fields.

Such in-demand occupations are regulated in B.C. by the Association of Technicians and Technologists of B.C. Current job openings are listed here. Institutes of technology and many universities and colleges offer the training that would lead to positions like these. Most courses take two years, less than a university degree. Many technician and technology positions offer upward mobility into areas like management or professional engineering.

For those who prefer to deal with people, we will still need doctors, nurses, and other health professionals even as AI takes over the more tedious administrative aspects of that work. Counsellors and advisors will still be needed, but they will need to have both excellent people skills and detailed expertise in fields like financial planning, employment, and others. The more routine support and advice can and will be provided by AI.

Even in hands-on occupations, practitioners will still have to keep up to date with AI and other developing systems. These current and future developments will be like the telephone—useful and necessary in whatever we do. But they will also free us from the tedious administrative requirements that until now were part of just about every job.

We now find ourselves in an uncertain economy with high and rising unemployment. What used to be good ways to find a job or establish a career are no longer working, and AI-related elimination looms over many positions. But there are still many hands-on occupations that AI cannot fill and that offer good jobs now and excellent career prospects to those willing to consider them.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.