“It was a little bit different, but it was easy for me,” said Mr. Cornett, now 36. “I worked with my hands in the oil fields doing things of that nature, so it was pretty easy to catch on.”
Extensive research has shown that there are fewer middle-skill jobs, and that some displaced workers never recover, especially if they live in communities that no longer have jobs similar to their old ones or they don’t have higher education.
Workers also have little incentive to invest in training, because there’s no guarantee it will pay off with long-term employment. Others have trouble thinking of themselves as doing other kinds of jobs — which Lawrence Katz, a Harvard labor economist, says is an identity mismatch, not a skill mismatch.
My opinion: And that's why I research college programs and careers, and take career quizzes.
The United States spends a fraction of what other developed countries do on labor market adjustment programs like job counseling and retraining. Assistance is piecemeal, and many people who qualify don’t use it.
He said the approach should instead be, “If you learned it at Harvard or Cal State Northridge or on the job as a secretary or in the Navy or as a volunteer, awesome.”
“It isn’t really a new skill set,” she said. “This is leveraging an existing skill set. They need a mechanical aptitude to mine coal, so the transition is very easy for them. We’re actually fitting a round peg into a round hole.”
These could include job counseling; cash grants for taking time off to take classes; wage insurance to make up the difference for taking a lower-paying job; and relocation grants to move to areas of the country with more jobs.
Aug. 5, 2019 Opportunity@Work: I went to Opportunity@Work and it's for Americans. However, they do have good job articles.
During a recent hotel stay, I had a conversation about how staff divides gratuities with the gentleman who brought my room service. It evolved into a master class — generously given by him — on how to manage hours and earnings in the hospitality industry. He told me the advice he gives less experienced staff on how to time joining a new hotel so they can get the tenure needed to control their schedules. I could see he didn’t just have a Plan B, but a Plan C, D and E for when his children get sick, or he’s needed on an extra shift. Every day, week and month, he manages a complex, ever-shifting matrix that would impress any director of logistics.
There are millions of people like this room service attendant — sharp, talented individuals, working what we often call “low skill” jobs. You know them: the server at your neighborhood grill, the barista working during your morning coffee run or the home health worker who cares for your parent. It might even be you. Every day, these workers pour their intelligence and ingenuity, craft and creativity, and sometimes mind-boggling resourcefulness into jobs where these attributes are sometimes appreciated, but rarely rewarded.
What are the jobs that we blithely assume anyone can do? Restaurant servers juggle five or six tables at a time, preempting customers’ needs and keeping a high-stakes, continuously recalibrating to-do list in their heads.
Caregivers administer drugs and nurse our loved ones through what can be the most difficult times of their lives.
Migrant workers acquire, deploy and pass on a deep understanding of the crop patterns of various fruits, vegetables and trees in a range of soil conditions.
Such jobs require optimizing time tradeoffs, quality control, emotional intelligence and project management.
They are not low skill, but they are low wage.
Why does this matter? When we stereotype or lazily assume low-wage workers to be “low skill,” it reinforces an often unspoken and pernicious view that they lack intelligence and ambition, maybe even the potential to master “higher-order” skilled work.
In an economy that is supposed to operate as a meritocracy — but rarely does — too often, we see low wages and assume both the work and workers are low-value. This bias makes us overlook people for better-paying positions in which they might have excelled, hindering their social mobility.
According to recent research by Jesse Rothstein of UC Berkeley, 45% of the factors determining how likely an American is to earn more than their parents are structural, like inherited wealth and where you live.
One third of the likelihood of upward mobility is access to job opportunities — holding education constant — based on differential networks, discrimination and access.
Each of those factors outweighs the impact of a person’s “skills” predicted by their education — 22% of the total.
Discussions around the future of work often focus on a “skills gap.” As industries change, the McKinsey Global Institute forecasts that 44% or more of the tasks in jobs held by workers with less than a bachelor’s degree are automatable.
It is certainly true that millions of people in low-wage jobs will need new skills for future work. Middle- and high-wage jobs will be affected too, but there is cynicism that low-wage workers are intrinsically unable to master new skills. This is mostly a cop-out. More than a skills gap, we have an opportunity gap, punctuated by a U.S. labor market in which adults who lack selective college degrees and professional experience are pre-emptively “screened out” based on their history. They are denied the chance to demonstrate and be hired for what they are ready to do and able to learn.
Imagine a receptionist who works at a small business. At her job, she handles tech support and has effectively become the entire IT department, but that’s not reflected in her resume or education. If she decides to reboot her career with an IT position, she will probably be screened out of potential jobs by algorithms searching for specific academic and employment history.
Or consider the more than 30 million Americans who attended college but did not attain a degree. Think of returning veterans, caregivers, and uncredentialed working learners with non-traditional career paths.
When employers focus only on resumes and degrees, these workers have no easy way to prove their abilities for better jobs and the “skills gap” becomes a self-fulfilling and self-defeating prophecy.
This flawed mindset hurts businesses as well as individuals. It leads them to organize low wage work in ways that ignore intelligence and even restrict the contribution of front-line workers. It undermines their incentives — or even permission — to act as problem solvers, damaging customer, financial and economic outcomes.
In an earlier career phase, when I helped businesses improve the effectiveness of their call centers and data centers, a common source of inefficiency was top-down metrics that overrode the judgment of front-line workers. For example, customer support staffers were often required to follow strict protocol and transfer callers with time-intensive issues to more expensive staff, even if they could solve the problem themselves.
Not only was it incredibly frustrating for these employees to be barred from helping people, but it also alienated customers and cost the company more. Repeated throughout our economy, these infantilizing practices stymie too much of the productivity growth upon which rising wages depends.
We tend to think of our economic assets as the line items accountants can measure on a balance sheet: machines and software, land and factories, debt and equity. However, the talents, skills and know-how of workers — what is sometimes called “human capital” — is probably worth 4 to 5 times more than corporate assets.
In other words, our economy’s most important resources to solve the problems of the future are the abilities of our people — which are “rented” but not “owned” by companies. That very much includes the almost 100 million working adults in the U.S. without bachelor’s degrees, some 60 million of whom currently earn less than $15 per hour.
In misjudging the potential of these workers, we not only undermine our civic values of fairness and equality of opportunity; we also lose the additional work, wages, ideas and improvements they would otherwise have created, contributed and earned.
Wages do not equal the worth of a person. From developing software to nourishing tired travelers, all meaningful work contributes to society and deserves dignity.
Undervaluing low-wage work as “low-skill” is often untrue and unfair, but it also undermines our economic future.
Work is solving problems.
When we invest in low-wage working learners, allowing them to put their talents and skills to better use — and with better reward — our economic returns will be higher, and our society healthier.
https://blog.opportunityatwork.org/low-wage-not-low-skill-why-devaluing-our-workers-matters-b4192d0a6513
https://www.skillful.com/
10 Best Jobs for a Career Change/ "Hole in the Mall"
"Most Canadians who switch careers are happier for it, survey finds"/ "Would You Like To Be Happy With Your Career? Advice From An Expert Career Coach"
EDMONTON -- The kindness of a north Edmonton community caught the eye of NBA superstar LeBron James.
On Tuesday, Anthony Muobike received a hoop and basketball from Canadian Tire and a $750 Sport Chek gift card from his community after a neighbour noticed the 14-year-old would always dribble and shoot into the air without a net.
A surprised and thankful Muobike told CTV News about his big dreams after he had what he needed to practice.
"You'll see me out there, in the NBA, that’s where you’ll find me."
A guy who knows a thing or two about the NBA believes in him, and showed love to Edmonton's north side.
"This is pure and beautiful. That community is amazing. Nobody can fulfill their dreams alone," James, a four-time NBA champion and four-time MVP, wrote on Instagram.
"Anthony keep working kid. You have another fan in me."
In an interview with CTV News Edmonton, Muobike said he was surprised that one of his basketball idols commented on his post.
"I'm like, 'Wow. LeBron. Like, LeBron James is commenting on me,'" Muobike said. "I was really happy. It got me a little emotional. LeBron is my idol.
"(He) is the main reason why I started doing basketball," he added. "I did not know this would sky-rocket this way."
Muobike says he is simply trying to process everything that is happening and is grateful for all the support he has received.
"I am trying to process everything right now. I am still trying to process the net. I haven't gotten over that.
"What LeBron said just made my brain stop," he added. "Everything is just happening so fast."
LeBron James calls Edmonton community 'amazing' after it gifts basketball hoop to teen | CTV News
Aug. 25, 2021 "Is it time to end the COVID-19 ban on reusable coffee cups?": Today I found this article by Sophia Harris from CBC. This is about the environment and I'm interested in that. I make instant coffee at home. It's very rare that I go out and buy coffee unless I have a coupon or a gift card. A lot of comments are about making coffee at home. If you want it to taste sweet, but a can of whip cream, hot chocolate powder, sugar, and milk and put that in your coffee:
This week, Starbucks took a new step in the return to pre-pandemic life: it's once again offering to serve customers coffee in their reusable mug.
Meanwhile, major competitors Tim Hortons and McDonald's say they have no immediate plans to accept reusable mugs, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
When the pandemic first hit in March 2020, many quick-service restaurants — including large chains Starbucks, McDonald's and Tim Hortons — declined to accept reusable mugs because of health concerns. That meant customers had no choice but to get their takeout coffee in a disposable cup.
Now that Starbucks has reintroduced reusable mugs, some environmentally conscious coffee drinkers are asking why the other major chains aren't following suit.
"A lot of environmental things went on the back burner during COVID-19," said Brenya Green of Toronto, who's eager to once again be served coffee in her reusable mug.
Health and safety concerns
Disposable paper coffee cups are problematic because they're lined with plastic. While the lining prevents leakage, it makes them difficult to recycle. As a result, many municipal recycling depots, including Toronto's, reject them, so they wind up in landfills.
According to Research firm Euromonitor, Canadians consumed more than 4.6 billion average-sized cups of coffee from food service outlets in 2020. For most of that year, Starbucks, McDonald's and Tim Hortons didn't accept reusable mugs.
McDonald's and Tim Hortons — which have reopened for indoor dining — still reject reusable mugs.
Tim Hortons had accepted them for decades — before the pandemic hit.
"We are continuing to monitor the public health environments across Canada as we evaluate when to bring back the use of reusable cups," said a Tim Hortons spokesperson in an email.
