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Rethink Careers Training

By ACS Distance Education on September 30, 2014 in Education | comments

Are Careers Even Possible for Most People?

Work opportunities have always been driven by demand. If people want more goods and services, there is more demand. Demand creates a need for people to create and supply those goods and services.
What happens though when everyone has everything they could ever want or use, and we are still increasing our capacity to create more things with less effort?

Technology and science has vastly increased our capacity to produce; and is continuing to increase productivity even further.  From 1900 to 1950 productivity in the workplace increased a lot, and people worked far less hours. We had more spare time to use things, and more things to be used. This trend continued from 1950 to 2000.


Consider:

  •          Productivity increased more than ten times between 1950 and 2010.

  •          Productivity is increasing at an even faster rate today, and is likely to speed up even more.

  •          From 1900 to 1950; productivity advances allowed us to reduce the working week to around 40 hours.

  •          From 1950 to 2000, productivity advances enabled most people in developed countries to have the all the goods and services they might aspire to have.

  •          It has become the norm to eat what you want, buy the clothes you want, travel overseas, have multiple TV’s in a house, etc.

Some “futurists” are now postulating that we are approaching a point where we will need fewer and fewer people to produce all the goods and services that everyone will ever want. 

If half the workforce can produce ten times the goods and services we currently use: who is going to use all the extra goods & services; and what are the 50% unemployed going to do?

As this happens, the jobs available may continue to diminish.
Perhaps the most viable long term careers may end up being people who are self employed?