Top And Bottom, Big And Little

The middle is missing everywhere

My wife and I were talking about the outsourcing of entry-level (and some higher-level) white-collar jobs. It’s a thing she sees in her field, where a lot of jobs that would previously have been first or second jobs for recent graduates are now just located or contracted out overseas.

That certainly means opportunity for people in countries that are poorer and have fewer opportunities. Probably/hopefully. But it raises the question of how you identify and train up the managers and CEOs of 20, 30, 40 years in the future, if the jobs those people would be doing now are no longer available as entry points?

The idea of having your career within one company, climbing its internal ladder, is pretty much gone, and has been for awhile. In our previous home, one of our neighbors, a retired elderly lady, had a clock on her wall that she’d gotten as a gift from her company for 40 years of service. Imagine someone 25 now getting that at retirement! Now even climbing the ladder in general is difficult, because first jobs that also open up career paths seem to be in short supply.

Jobs that usually go nowhere and don’t pay terribly well are still available. Based on the number of hiring signs, anybody could probably find a retail, restaurant, or service job. Those jobs might funnel people through careers in hospitality, but not at a rate you’d want to bet on.

It’s interesting to me that in some ways this mirrors what has happened in housing.