In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average
job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, average is officially over.
Being average just won’t earn you what it used to.
It can’t when so many more
employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign
labour, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation and cheap genius.
Therefore, everyone needs to find their extra — their unique value contribution
that makes them stand out in whatever is their field of employment. Average is
over.
There will always be change — new jobs, new products, new
services. But the one thing we know for sure is that with each advance in
globalisation and the I.T. revolution, the best jobs will require workers to
have more and better education to make themselves above average.
By way of
illustration, here are the latest unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labour
Statistics for Americans over 25 years old: those with less than a high school
degree, 13.8 per cent; those with a high school degree and no college, 8.7 per
cent; those with some college or associate degree, 7.7 per cent; and those with
bachelor’s degree or higher, 4.1 per cent.
In a world where average is officially over, there are many
things we need to do to buttress employment, but nothing would be more
important than passing some kind of Recovery Act for the 21st century that ensures that every Briton has access to
post-secondary school education.
