What Job Polarization Means for Today's Students
The complexity and societal risk of helping students prepare for unknown futures is illustrated by a chart from Joshua Lerner at the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis:
From Lerner:
Where we have seen slower growth is in the middle. The light blue bars, which I term lower middle-wage jobs account for about 40 percent of all occupations in 2012 yet account for just 26 percent of the growth. The dark blue bars, which I term upper middle-wage jobs, account for another 19 percent of all occupations and 0 percent of the growth. This, by definition, is job polarization.
phone spy softwareBut, everyone can't work in the fields at the bottom, and the only other decent-paying growth industries are in the lowest paid services. Absent serious federal attention to job (and career) development, I fear an ever more Darwinian economic environment and narrowing prospects for today's elementary students.