Did you know that your job is on the verge on being out of date?

I'm taking a class right now, called Economics of Education. It states that many of the people who were laid off will probably never go back to the same line of work they once had. They will attempt to apply for what is out there, but what is out there is NEW. In fact, so NEW that some of these job descrriptions didn't even exist 10 years ago- like Director of eLearning on-line curriculum, or Apps Developer for Google Smart Phones. Not only do we need math and science to pull off such jobs, but it is a Boss'es market and they can well pick and choose.

This means bosses are looking for pre-trained packages. They want people who already come with value-added, and they are shopping for employees who will make them look good. They don't necessarily expect to train you the way old jobs would have. They don't need to hire you full time, offer you benefits or incentives. In fact, you may have to accept lower salary than before, because there are 300 applicants for each job and they can afford to look around and make lower bids.

So how do you tell an employer you're the one when they have 300 resumes to look over? You once told them about how loyal you were, and that used to work, but now you are just a human resource, and like other resources, you are comparable to paper supplies, pencils, water, or desks. You are a resource. Some companies just can't find who they want, so they outsource to temp agencies or import foreign workers. If you don't keep up on your Math, English, or computer skills, somebody else HAS and they will offer a better value-added package to that employer.

Oh, and let's not forget your concept of finding the forever-job where you will retire. Who retires any more? Many people can't afford to retire, or retirement just means stop one kind of job and start a different kind. Also, the new generation is about wits and speed, not loyalty. They think nothing of staying at a job for 6 months or a year, then taking off to a competitor. Look at Bill Gates and Steve Jobs who dropped out of college and went their own direction. Well, they ushered in a brand new era of impatience. Yes, kids are now tech saavy, and can find information fast. But many can't add without a calculator, they don't know how to write in cursive (and penmanship is not taught in school any more), and they are impatient to kill the enemy and play Halo or some other violent virtual reality game.

OK, so they are a new breed, with tatoos and pierced bodies, stretched earlobes, and looking a bit asexual in that both girls and boys have the gauged ears and tatoos. If you think you won't employ them, think again. Soon the brightest and perhaps the only applicants for some jobs may have this look, and eventually employers will have to hire this colorful tech-saavy breed that dumpster dives, eats vegan foods, and takes a pass on the high frustose corn syrup-laden breads and cereals.

Soon cars will be electric, water heaters will be solar, houses will have solar panels built in when they are constucted, and there will be teams of repairmen coming from schools that learned to fix these devices and machines that YOU have never seen before. So if you are an old-school mechanic that once worked on catalytic converters or deisel engines, you may sound like an old foggie to these brightly tatooed solar panel experts.

Oh, and here are some more facts to share, in case you think going to school is still not worth it:

$13,000 per year- disabled person

$20,000 per year- high school grad

$22,000 per year- certificate holder

$23,000 per year- A.A. degree holder

$24,000 per year- third year college student at 4 year school

$25,000 per year- B.A. degree holder

$32,000 per year- B.A with experience

$40,000 per year- masters degree

$50,000 per year-Masters degree and experience

$60,000 per year-Doctorate degree

$70,000 per year-Doctorate and experience

$80-$100 per year-Doctorate, experience, specialization/researcher

So a Doctorate may cost you $45,000 to go to school. But over the course of 20 years, how many times will you have made your money back?

Yes, we see the facts, but I have yet another question that has not been answered here, so I will need your comments. And that is,at what age do you stop being hired, despite your competency, because you are found to be overqualified, too old ("aged-out"), or you just got caught in the change of competencies that makes all that you learned in school out of date? Just imagine all the graduates of tech schools who learned Windows 95 and DOS years back. Where did they go?

OK, so this is what I learned recently and I am sharing it with all of you. We are told that education is a bargain and that everyone should go to college. But I also worry about keeping people current, keeping skills cutting-edge, and being aged-out. Oh, please don't tell me there is no such thing or that it is illegal. I watched my former boss do it herself. We had interviewed a man who was in his 60;s and she didn't want to hire him because his image was not "cool and hip" enough to appeal to the young adult students. So now employees are a comodity too, and a stage routine, and to get a job you have to sing, dance, entertain, and be a comodity that people can choose for how you look, or for your coolness, and not just how smart you are...Hum...That's sort of sad. But thinking back to the younger set with the gauged ears and tatoos...yes, people do look at you and relate or not relate to you. It should be illegal to hire or not hire based on looks, but people do it all the time. Scary, huh?