Blue collar jobs can seem like a lucrative and respectable choice for a career. They have several advantages such as the relative speed of vocational training compared to 4 year college, possibly better Return on Investment in terms of costs, and with potentially high enough skill barriers to afford a degree of protection and stability. However, in reality this is not the case, or is increasingly not the case as technology and the economy move us onto a different trajectory. In the near future, one of the key challenges is likely to be the replacement of large parts of both blue collar and white collar work by new forms of technology automation (Shah, 2015). While it is possible that innovation will lead to new kinds of jobs elsewhere, there is a real possibility that a net loss of employment takes place – with especially negative effect on blue collar workforces, already facing several decades of pressures due to globalization, changing consumption patterns, and technology.
In terms of increasing the work force, the major determinant of people choosing to work productively is shifting from survival or purely economic reasons, to cultural and lifestyle factors. The expansion of welfare as well as charity, and possibly new moves such as the proposed Universal Basic Income, are gradually removing work from the domain of necessity to choice. However, this choice is also likely to be limited and competitive, there still being winners and losers from the system. In such a case, it is unlikely that the awareness campaign will do much to promote more people joining the workforce – as they are unlikely to need it definitely, they may only find it worthwhile to enter the workforce when the prize is something desirable or direct their efforts only towards those prizes that are.
The question is then whether blue collar jobs are permanently not desirable. The answer rests in the question of what makes a desirable job. In our times and into the future, the aspects of stability and security in income are questionable elements of work. The value of practical skills other than abstract ideas or concepts is still there, but is dwindling as the work is seen as repetitive and easily done by machines as well as people. In fact, a high number of blue collar jobs that have not been exported to other nations have been replaced by automation and robots, and the growth of AI and technology is threatening to further replace additional jobs over the next decade. Apart from artisanal work then, it is unlikely that a renaissance in blue collar work is around the corner. Attempting to raise the profile of blue collar work is therefore likely to be counterproductive – probably training and encouraging people for careers which are no longer present when they enter the workforce. The likely result would be a huge number of unemployable individuals, with following frustrations and disruptions to people’s expectations of life. This would not be beneficial for the economy, creating a drag of non-productive individuals instead of skills which are in demand even in a highly automated world.
In line with this is the inevitable impact (the lack of) on student debt. While students now struggle with record levels of student debt, their hopes of repaying rest on stable incomes over many years, as the rates and structures of student debt make it particularly difficult to be released from. In a blue collar career, wages are intended to be steady and grow over a long period, along with expertise as a craftsman. This effectively rules out early or premature repayments of student debt. To repay the debt therefore, the student should have reasonable confidence that his/her blue collar job will have a future for up to 20 years (allowing for other expenses and emergencies) to have d chance to repay debt. The student will also face the full brunt of student debt repayment schedules, possibly creating further disruption to other debt needs like mortgages. In order therefore to repay student loans, and be able to service some other debt like a mortgage for some kind of affordable property or family home, the student would have to plan for upto 30 years or more of blue collar employment – effectively a lifetime. Given the prospects of blue collar work, this does not seem a likely future. The only other possibility is that heightened awareness of blue collar work will prevent the assumption of student debt in the first place. But for the same reasons as outline above, this is unlikely to be a positive and long-lasting career option.
Next we come to the program of raising awareness itself, and whether it creates any new prospects such as entrepreneurship, job creation or other innovation that will have benefits other than those which are known. There was a period when blue collar activities had a strong connection with inventiveness, and to a significant extent still do especially in various areas of engineering, product design and useful inventions. It cannot be said that innovation or enterprise is a white collar preserve. Yet, even in this respect, the multiplier effects of enterprise are being pulled into the white collar area of activity. Consider tech startups, or hardcore engineering activities such as space vehicles and self-driving cars, all of these are being supported by huge networks of capital which are changing entrepreneurship from a creative activity conducted in isolation into a structured and resource dependent professional enterprise. In this world, being an entrepreneur will necessitate access to these networks, so as to make the most of multiplier effects and the support systems that they offer. Without these, any entrepreneur is vulnerable to be caught up or overtaken, particularly as the speed of information movement would make it difficult to keep ideas secret or hidden until they can be usefully employed. While this doesn’t mean that blue collar activities will not have opportunities for entrepreneurship, the chances of breaking through with an original idea for a person from a blue collar background is going to become increasingly more difficult.
Having an awareness campaign for blue collar jobs appears on the surface to be a good idea, and also very fashionable given the decline in manufacturing and some romantic views of the stability and prosperity of the largely industrial and blue collar working past. A more critical analysis of the situation, not from the past but from the future prospects of blue collar work, does not allow us to share the optimism. Instead, we observe a future where blue collar work is increasingly reduced to specialist activity, no longer having the scale to employ a huge section of the workforce (Florida, n.d.). The changing situation of work and the advancing nature of technology makes the picture of optimistic blue collar prospects seem like a fools’ paradise. Instead, we might want to use our resources for more relevant applications – such as training for greater applications in scientific and creative fields, or the need for human touch service activities like nursing or caregiving which are expected to grow enormously as people live longer (Tickle, 2013) or more generally an approach to greater flexibility rather than stability.
Works Cited
Florida, Richard. "Where the Blue-Collar Jobs Will Be." The Atlantic. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
Shah, Ritika. "Industrial Revolution 2.0? Experts Debate Robotic Threat to Jobs." CNBC. 13 Dec. 2015. Web. 19 Apr. 2016.
Tickle, Louise. "Where Will the Social Care Jobs of the Future Be?" The Guardian. 30 Sept. 2015. Web. 19 Apr. 2016.
