Maybe I missed it but there was no discussion of what skills go into a "new collar job."<p>Maybe it's called that because your job skills will change so frequently, and your job security is so low that your collar is always "new."<p>The whole discussion was basically water vapor - 11x increase in [metric] compared to low income schools. Wow great! What time period, what jobs, what skill sets etc...?<p>Sorry for being negative but this is an empty carb article when we need high protein.
It's not "skills". It's "skills at the cost we want". Market forces will generally bring people with skills when the pay rate is high enough. If skills are so important, why not have a company train a person for the job?
"New collar" is marginally skilled people who can fulfill a set of tasks without a lot of upward mobility. Support techs, call centers, etc. Employees get a job that pays better than fast food, employers get disposable employees who don't voluntarily churn.<p>Basically the next generation of mainframe operators, except with public funding of their vocational training.
The funny reality is that every mid-sized company has openings for tech related roles. It's just that none of them are willing to pay for any level or skill or expertise unless it's geographically close enough to the bay area. I'm sure that there are a lot of ways to make companies more efficient with technology but at the same time they look at technology as a cost-center and not something that is generating money.
I think they hit on a real tension, but their interpretation of what is needed is wrong. The shift I think we need to see is management as "doers" rather than everyone being able to do everything. That is middle management needs to have at least enough skills to identify problems and act as a project manager rather than management for the sake of management. With that you'll have teams that look like proficient generalists at the middle/top level and then deep dive specialists underneath them. It's kind of a failure of the modern big co. that the only way to advance is through management rather than some sort of journeyman expert track which is what is really needed.
IBM will offshore 8 out of 10 positions by 2017 <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/07/ibm_offshoring/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/07/ibm_offshoring/</a><p>Have fun with your "new collar" - don't let it choke you too much.
A non-bachelor's education program seems like a great way to help. Many people attend university without a specific goal because they believe it's required in order to get a decent job. They believe that because for the most part, it's true. But perhaps employers just use it as a simple signal/shibboleth. If so, maybe "tech trade school graduate" would be just as good and hopefully more cost effective.
I live in NYC and note that Google owns the 3rd largest office building in the city which is located in Manhattan and uses it for engineering. Many of the top technical people in the country want to live and work in Manhattan.<p>IBM HQ is located in NY State and headed by an engineer (Rometty), but I'd argue the difference in thinking between Google and their engineering leadership and IBM and their leadership is night and day. IBM has a lot of engineers and researchers in Westchester and other parts of the state, but not in the place that people want to live.<p>Notably, of the large tech firms of Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Oracle, IBM, only Google has the right idea of having any meaningful presence in NYC.<p>If the firms other than Google are truly serious about hiring top tech talent, they like Google, would have a major presence in NYC.
Hmm, IBM was just laying off huge swathes of it's US workforce...<p><a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/31/ibm_bloodbath_continues/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/31/ibm_bloodbath_conti...</a>
I don't understand why this is a problem. There have always been skilled technicians in the mechanical world. Welders, mechanics, lathe operators, craftsmen.<p>There are a huge number of jobs that you need to know how to use computers but dont need to know how to balance a binary tree. I'd think most of the new millennial generation would be perfect match already, and lots of other generations would be keen to do some night courses and/or on the job training to specialize in whatever is needed.
I think the main thing here is an acknowledgment that automation will greatly disrupt the workforce. Simple, automatable work will be, and greater effort will be necessary to prepare displaced workers for the remaining opportunities. Not sure what skills this would require and whether this should be the responsibility of the government/universities or the corporations in charge of the hiring and retraining, but I think that's more the point than "IBM wants cheaper labor"
There are similar programs that are used in the UK where kids do a ride-along at a tech firm and then after a year they disappear forever. It's frustrating because it is unwise not to shop around and all you get is a warm body for a year or so.
This seems to be the original source: <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2016/12/13/we-need-fill-new-collar-jobs-employers-demand-ibms-rometty/95382248/" rel="nofollow">https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2016/12/13/we-...</a>