The real reset is coming

"Failure to adapt will mean failure to launch. The world which is coming is different than any we have ever seen nor imagined."  

John and Mary decided to return a couple gifts and then maybe have a bite out. The line at the store for returns was very long, and not moving very fast. After waiting for about fifteen minutes, one of the store managers walked by. "Excuse me", John said, "Can't you get more help in this line? It is moving very slow." The manager just shrugged his shoulders. ""Sorry sir. As the saying goes, what you see is what you get. Our staffing was down 25% over the holidays, and today, two people called in, as they were too busy to work".  

After a bit, John and Mary gave up on the returns, and headed to a local family restaurant to get some supper. It seems they were not the only ones with that idea. At the restaurant was a line waiting to get in. Mary went in to take a peek to see what the holdup was. She asked the person behind the counter why an entire section was roped off, when so many folks were waiting to get a table. "Sorry - no staff for that section. We have been short of help all year. This morning, one of our waiters just up and quit. No notice or nothing."

Not to be the bearer of bad news, the above example is today's problem. Many people choosing not to work. Especially service jobs. But tomorrow's problem is going to be much, much bigger. How so? Technology. Not any offshore company or country taking our jobs, but the technology we invent will take them. Our biggest problem is the tens of thousands (maybe millions) of jobs which will be done by some kind of automation by 2030. One article I read, said that worldwide, over a billion current jobs will be gone by 2030. That is six years away. 

What is the solution? Train young people, especially school age, to be ready for jobs which don't yet exist. There will be jobs in 2030 - just not many that look like today's jobs. So, how are our kids doing to get ready for the coming reset in six years? Well, many cannot read at grade level. And many cannot do math. Other than that, they know about the 63 new pronouns. And DEI. But learning for the future? Nada. 

This would be a great question to ask at a school board meeting next month in 2024. "Excuse me - but what are we doing to prepare our kids for the coming reset? Are we still training kids for jobs which will be taken over by automation, or are we thinking outside the box? Are we training our young people for jobs which don't yet exist?" I would love to see how that one would be answered.

Even our truck driver shortage will turn into a surplus once more trucks become autonomic. Yes, that is coming. Many manual jobs - gone. Many service sector jobs - gone. Many assembly line jobs - gone. The unions can clamor all they want, but here is reality. The great reset is going to be technology. And AI will be the biggest culprit. 

There is an old saying for the young folks who went into the field of robotics. "I make things which make things." That is where the future lies. We need to train our young folks how to make things which make things. More and more things will be made by some kind of 3-D printing - even some food items. More housing will be 3-D printer made. The possibilities are endless.

For us boomers, we have seen the entire gamut of manufacturing era jobs. We saw many new jobs come, and now we will see even more go away. But many boomers now are retired and can sit back and look at this changing landscape in amazement. The young folks however - can't. They need to be nimble and develop critical thinking skills.

Why? Failure to adapt will mean failure to launch. The world which is coming is different than any we have ever seen nor imagined.