Work until you die: Lifelong labor becomes new normal
Whether by choice or necessity, more people are working past retirement age,
"From 1990 to 2010, the percentage of workers 65 and older staying in the job market rose for both women (from 28.2 to 43.8 percent) and men (52.5 to 65.3 percent). ... There’s an interesting paradox happening in the U.S. labor market: today there are more incentives than ever for a healthy, prosperous retirement. Yet, over the same time period since investment options like 401(k)’s become available, people have been choosing to work further into their golden years..." continue reading Yahoo News
While the above is an American sample, does one have to guess the Canadian figures?
Looks like, it is not necessary. You can build your own statistics based on some official trends, to know first, if you will get a job, and if yes, after how much of struggle, patience and eyes-breakers, and how will it be the new normal.
An example is job prospect's for the grads at the Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto's one academic school:
"For the last 30 years, about 50% of graduates in our field have succeeded in securing a tenure-track job within 5 years of graduation." (source: UoT)
Read the above numbers again: about 50% of thier grads have got in, and got in after waiting (upto FIVE years...) What will the other 50% get as a return on their investment???? What will those do who secure job in their waiting time...And, how long will they pay their overdue school bills, medical bills and the rest of the financial baggage. May be all of them will workout as a new normal, or work anyways in any capacity to make the ends meet. Bottomline is they will be also working until they die... See also: Decline of humanities; The Repurposed Ph.D. : Finding Life After Academia — and Not Feeling Bad About It NYTimes by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow
(Anonymous comment on this article: Academia is full of problems, and so is the rest of society. Why do people go to University? Not really to get education (they can get that online now), but to get a degree. And why do they need a degree? Because recruiters rely on labels and brands. And why do recruiters function that way? Because it is far more important to them to be able to justify a hiring decision to a semi-ignorant management, than hiring the best person for the job. And why is management semi-ignorant? Because, by and large, at the top of the pyramid it's not really about what you know but who you know. And in fact when you look at decision-making in academia you often see an enormous personal bias: very talented Ph.D. students who don't get along with faculty and must give up, very talented professors who don't get along with the tenured crowd and are rejected by the system etc.
Add all the students graduating in debt who will never find decent jobs because recruiters will mark them as unemployable for the "objective" reason they couldn't find jobs immediately after graduation, and you get a pretty grim picture. But all this mindlessness works very very well for a small fraction of the population who's never had a better time.)
See also on the same shelf:
- How the graduate job market has changed over 2012: With a shoddy economy and more university leavers than ever to compete with, Anna Pitts takes a look at new trends in graduate recruitment over 2012 and how you should respond, theguardian.com
- Public Education and Job Readiness: Why Is There a Disconnect ...
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