Modern Skills

Technology offers some complexity and is replaced with more complexity. Occupations have been completely changed

In the 1800s, we all rode on horses and drove horse drawn wagons. The invention of the automobile changed all that. Occupations included home-based leather crafts and blacksmith shops. The automobile and factories replaced these family businesses. 

In the 1900s, we created more jobs in factories making new products with new technologies as they developed. In the 1960s, cars were not complicated and most teenagers worked on their own cars. Automobiles became more complicated as we introduced air conditioning, electric windows, pollution mitigation, better mileage and safety equipment. By the 1980s, cars were too complicated to work on and this created auto mechanic jobs. The electronics revolution produced PCs and PLCs and these replaced mechanical telephony. Office jobs changed as we all did our own typing and brought in more computing power to increase productivity.

In the 2000s, we have more complicated smartphones, wifi, and multiple paths for wireless signals through phone lines, cellphone towers, fiber optic cable and satellites. Advances in electronics produced flat screen TV, Production is supported by rapid changes in technology.

Designing products has moved from the Drafting Table to the Computer and connected directly to the milling machines. Robotics and process control have been developed to ensure precision to improve quality and reliability.

Cars now get 40 mpg or more and last over 300,000 miles. In 1960, cars got 10 mpg and died after 100,000 miles. But new car prices went from $3000 in 1960 to $30,000 or more in 2019..

All of this technological innovation over a relatively short period of time forces occupational complexity and job specialization. We are learning from our more tech savy relatives and use more contractors.

We shot ourselves in the foot when we offshored US manufacturing. We had the largest economy with the wealthiest consumer base on the planet and we gave away our middle class jobs in the 1990s. 

Now, 30 years later, we find ourselves with a younger workforce full of minimum wagers, Marxits political activists and snowflakes. We will need to go through the learning curve to catch up with current technology to get US citizens to advance beyond minimum wage jobs that were designed for students working part-time and summers. This was sabotage on the US economy we will need to overcome in the next 6 years to restore middle class jobs and restore the US economy.

Our schools didn’t keep up with this trend and have become occupationally irrelevant. That should trigger a rennasance in trade schools and community colleges working with specific industries to provide certification programs. These schools work with the companies to place the graduates of their certification programs.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader