
Where Will the Jobs be in 2020? (hint: not tech) - vrikhter
http://www.nextpunch.com/job-growth-2020/
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kristopolous
I take issue with this math. The first set deals with percentage but ignores
overall numerical values. It's the classic 1 -> 2 = +100% while 1,000 -> 1,500
= +50% error. Most new jobs won't necessarily come from the most percentage
growth. The numerical value analysis is then isolated to this percentage
growth (thus probably ignoring the 1,000 -> 1,500 industries).

For evidence of this, there's an est. +35mil influx of population from 2010 -
2020. If we assume that ~25mil of the influx will be working in 2020, then we
have a much more modest ~8.4% growth (from the 2.1mil cited), not the
infographic implied +75%.

But that isn't the whole story. There's buggy-whip industry syndrome (ie,
negative growth industries): In the next 8 years there will jobs lost to
automation; eg., bank tellers yielding to online banking, toll road operators
yielding to fast-pay devices, you may even see driver-less taxis by 2020. Many
of those people will be forced to change industry.

Since those negative number industries have to be accounted for, just looking
at the influx of population is erroneous when considering potential positive
influx. Also, the median age is set to increase, so that has to be accounted
for as it implies that a larger percentage of people will be of working age.

Napkin math is going to get you in trouble when dealing with this kind of
stuff since those things are much harder to estimate, but the 2.1mil cited
accounting for 5% of jobs may be a much more reasonable assessment; or it may
be 15%, but it's not 75%.

Don't get me wrong, I like the color scheme: nice fonts, good layout; I just
find the lensing of the data to be manipulative.

When you have bad stats you have bad conclusions, a misinformed public, and
bad public policy. That can't be good.

Besides, claiming a more honest figure of 1/10 of new jobs will be elderly
care related doesn't detract from the message of industry's significant growth
- it's still a really substantial slice of the pie.

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wookietrader
Elderly care and health will actually spawn a lot of tech jobs as well. As
druiid said, robotics is one field. But tech is basically all over health
nowadays as well.

So yes, there will be plenty of jobs in tech.

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truebecomefalse
How is this trash on the front page?

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baltcode
What are these Satellite Telocom jobs, and how do you get them? Are these like
VLSI design, Spread Spectrum coding, and antenna design, or is there some
other layer that is supposed to be where the jobs growth is? If I search
"Satellite Telecommunications" on any jobs site, it doesn't show that many
jobs, and most of them seem to be defense related that require clearance.

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druiid
Japan has found out pretty much the same thing. With a huge aging population
and not enough people to care for them they have/are encountering this issue
sooner than the US has (mostly).

One of the interesting answers to the problem for the Japanese has been to
work toward mechanized solutions to many problems that might otherwise have
been performed by additional workers. If any of them are actually reasonable I
think has yet to be seen. I do know that on a nearly daily basis I see some
new robot meant to care for or interact with the elderly population. It's kind
of an interesting development and oddly seems to have pushed for more
expressive and capable robots.

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thwest
I don't the USA following Japan here. The US is more amenable to immigration
and less amenable to providing universal healthcare that can afford a several
thousand dollar personal robot.

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polarix
Mirror: <http://i.imgur.com/sap5e.jpg>

