What's Wrong With Labor?

 What’s Wrong with Labor?

 

This is an important question.   We have all just enjoyed a beautiful Labor Day weekend holiday with picture perfect weather.   Yet we seem of late to be adverse to actual labor.

State departments of education are pushing hard that every student be college ready.  They completely ignore the fact that there are some students who may not have the interest nor the academic skill to go to college.  Yet somehow the college and careers programs give very short attention to the career part of that training.   The facts tell us we might be doing something wrong.

 

As of the end of August the unemployment rate for all members of the workforce was 8.4%.   In spite of the Great Recession, when Obama left office the rate was 4.7%.  The federal reserve tells us that the natural rate for the U.S. should be between 3.5 and 4.5%.

 

But let’s unpack those numbers.  In spite of our huge push to send everyone to college, 41% of recent college grads are  working in a field that does NOT require the college degree for which they continue to be in debt!   And 12% of college grads are unemployed.   That information contradicts the common wisdom that you need a college degree to get a job.  In fact, right now, college educated people are unemployed at a higher rate than those less educated. 

 

What about those people who in spite of the pressure to go to college went into a career.   A job where they learned a skill.  A job that gives them a skill that is in demand.   Even with the high unemployment rate brought on by the pandemic, the skilled trades are doing quite well.  Looking at those numbers, we find only 6% of plumbers, 3.6% of HVAC techs, and 6% of electricians are unemployed, numbers well below those of their college graduate peers.

 

Students can learn a skill trade without a college degree and in many cases with the high school certificate.   The community colleges offer many technical degrees that  yield a high income job and do not require a high school diploma.

Do NOT decide that I am advocating against going to college, because I am not.  What is being advocated is that there are multiple paths to successful employment and those paths do not all start with a college degree.

 

We are all happy to have a 3-day weekend to celebrate.   But when it comes to celebrating labor itself- well that’s another paycheck.