The High

In the previous blog how technology is affecting what is considered the lower tier job market.

So how about the high? What even is the high?

Most would define high end jobs as ones who require education or a high skill threshold. People also tend to consider these safe. How many of us have heard the mantra "go to college, get a good job, have a good life"?

These days that is increasingly untrue. The largest thing that seems to be affecting this is the fact the high is shifting and sadly mostly downwards. I'm going to draw somewhat from personal experience here for an example.

In times past the a basic computer support job was worth about 20 dollars a hour and today it still does hover there give or take five dollars. Most people are pretty happy with that, heck the entry pay of eleven to thirteen seems to thrill people today. However those twenty dollars in the year 2000 have the same purchasing power as about twenty eight dollars today. So pay if you’re lucky is stagnant or unlucky and dropping for the same level position.

Why is that?

Just like the low end this is becoming more and more automated. You see this in your life directly by the digital voice systems that walk you through basic trouble shooting.

A more indirect method is troubleshooting trees. When I started at dell we actually had a fairly good interview process and you needed at least an understanding of how the machine worked. At this point they are capable of hiring pretty much anyone. The reason for this is after years of effort they have a pretty good troubleshooting tree. This allows them to grab nearly anyone off the street and put them on the phones. In fact we did have several employees who did not even own a computer on the phones that were transferred from other departments.

You know what is even more interesting? Frankly we didn’t even need people on the phones as a digital voice could handle the tree system just as well as any human could, perhaps better. On top of this if customers actually listened to the prerecorded message, they would find that a great many in fact almost all their issues can be self diagnosed by the machine and it will automatically order the correct parts for replacement if needed.

That being said you do still need more advanced people for odd issues, new issues, and so on. However you don’t need nearly as many of them. Now you have a situation where you can pick and choose and even pay less since you will have more people attempting to fill these slots than there are slots.

We have what was once considered a safe job, even considered a good job, and now anyone can do it and the wages are being driven to nothing. This unfortunately is not unique and is spreading across a great many industries.

Consolidation in general is a huge issue on the high end as well, perhaps even more so than the low since it saves so much more money. 

A good example of this is my sister’s husband. Last we talked I believe he said he works maybe ten actual hours a week. The rest of his time is spent waiting on data and setting up meetings to discuss the data. This isn't even a tech industry job we are talking about either and nor is he management. It is also not unique and is happening to many jobs as things become more efficient.

So even the traditionally skilled and educated jobs are subject to the same shrink we are seeing with the entry and unskilled jobs. Once again while some new areas are being created and blooming, such as programming, we really are not seeing many options open either. That all being said I would venture to say they are still safer.

Reference

http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/