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Im curious what peoples predictions for the coming demographic decline is for the US and other countries? Here is mine: An increase in healthcare related work, and a stagnation of other job sectors. Apparently, excluding healthcare, the amount of jobs in the US is on the decline or stagnating. Not such a fun job market, especially for someone like myself you falls in the "information" category. This will probably continue as the population declines and ages.
Its fascinating, because many people in the gen-z bracket were told to got to college, get a degree, and you'd have a nice cushy office job lined up. While this wasnt all the way bullshit, as i do actually have one of these jobs - as someone who is competing in the current job market, it is BRUTAL. I've had applied to a around ~ 50 jobs (All of these jobs that are at least close to my skill level & credentials, i live in florida for reference and its not the best market for tech to begin with, even though the tech sector is growing here according to the data). In total ive gotten about 3-4 call backs 2 - 3 interview. One were i made it to the final round after 3, and was rejected. Ghosted in another, and have one up and coming.
For more perspective here is my resume (& yes, im aware of the slight formatting error in the projects section). Multiple internships, degrees, & certificates, im trying my best to be competitive. More than one person in my friend group is happy to hear about this population decline; the job search is just so tough for them cant say id blame them, but what many dont understand about declining populations is that population both creates and takes jobs simultaneously. Sure if the population declines, you might have less competition, but you'd also have fewer openings as well. Hard to get hired when a lot of people are not around to create the job you'd be working to start with. The whole demographic decline is good because there will be less people to compete with strikes me as a shortsighted perspective - Humans make the wheels turn all the way down and less people being around isnt gonna create more opportunities for us as a whole.
Still, i can't help but empathize with the sentiment. Constantly apply to every job listing, going through multiple round interview, just to get rejected is so incredibly brutal. Many countries outside the US like china and italy have it even worse with high youth unemployment. It certainly doesnt feel like having more people would be a good from that perspective, even if it likely would. Aging populations mean that a lot of our future jobs and productivity is gonna be directed toward the health sector of our economies, inevitably taking away from or slowing growth from other sectors. I envy people who already have a strong career with high pay and benefits, its insanely difficult for the rest of us.
I know nothing about software engineering, but your resumé reads like you're not long out of college and don't have a lot of work experience right now. So you're caught in the trap of "we want someone with five years experience in X", but if you can't get a job, how can you get that experience?
Job searching is always brutal, I think the notion of "just get a basic qualification and walk into a job" happens/happened at specific times (e.g. when there was full employment and employers were desperate for any warm body to fill the vacancy) or for specific niches (e.g. when software engineering took off and became a viable job and there were more vacancies than qualified people).
Good luck with the search, keep on ploughing through!
What does "basic qualification" mean in this context please?
Used to be "finish your education at 15, that's plenty old enough" then "finish high school, don't drop out at 15", then "get some kind of post-school training or qualifications" then "get a Bachelor's Degree" and now "a basic BSc? not nearly good enough, even a Masters is no good, PhD or bust" or "okay, you did a basic BSc, now you need qualifications in this, that and the other".
And of course "you need to get into the right university, a mediocre degree from one of the top tiers will get you into more places than a great degree from some cow college".
God knows what "basic qualifications" will look like in the dawn of AI employment. Are we already beginning to see that?
I think Millennial and GenX people share cultural memory of a prosperous, cozy, modern society in wide consensus about social rewards and obligations. The message was: study hard, conform to social norms, don’t have a criminal record, don’t have children out of wedlock, don’t be an addicted lout, take care of yourself, make sure you graduate in time and look for a job. In return, society pretty much guarantees you a relatively good job worthy of your degree. This has fallen apart around the time of the financial crisis of 2008. It’s dead and gone, but again, people still remember it as something that was the norm for decades.
Can't speak for the Millies, but I think for GenX the defining cultural touchstone is "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (and I hate that movie with a passion, I hate the lead character, I hate the assumptions underpinning it) and I think you're correct: you can goof off but still expect, since you are on the 'right' path, to have a comfortable life just like your parents ahead of you. You can rebel against the authority of The Man, but we all know that this is not genuine rebellion and you will follow the path of 'go to college, get the degree, get the job, get the life'. I think the position of Dean Rooney in the movie is intriguing; he has no real authority. Ferris can trick him and expect to get away with it, and nobody in similar positions of authority (the police) will back him up. Teachers have gone from being respected to being regarded as losers, in a sense; Ferris will move on in his life (probably into a cushy PMC job like his dad and his friends' dads) and be successful, while the teachers are stuck in (low-paid) repetitive jobs doing the same thing with the same age groups over and over again. Cameron's father can own a Ferrari, at the end of the movie Rooney has to hitch a ride on a school bus.
Authority can be mocked but the social bargain still applies, is what the movie ends up saying; you are owed the Good Life if you follow the Rules, even if you bend the rules about "respect authority" and "tell the truth" and "do the work". Being smart and knowing which rules are for chumps and how to game the system gets rewarded. If you want a day of self-indulgence, go for it. Truancy records? Missing school? Who cares? You don't need that, you just need to be charming and know how to socially engineer relationships.
Then the bottom all fell out of that, certainly in the economic slump, and so the Millennials onwards feel cheated. They were promised the Good Life! Why aren't they getting what was promised? Well, turns out if you keep mocking authority for being old-school fuddy-duddy about 'do the right thing and don't cheat and don't break the rules', eventually you end up with other forces in its place that operate on the same "keeping to the rules is only for suckers" level, and they won't stick to the bargain of "follow the path laid out for you, you get the Good Life, you can then indulge yourself as a self-actualised individual whose only responsibility is to yourself and what makes you happy and fulfilled".
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