Statistics Canada Reports II

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Most of the useless jobs aren't things like Instagrammers (these are useless jobs too, but only a tiny minority of people can eke out even a middle class living off social media), but a lot of corporate white collar work. Also many white collar government and institutional jobs, as opposed to front-line service workers in these fields. The fact that the Federal civil service grew by 20% or more since Covid with no appreciable gains in efficiency or any sense that things are running any better suggests that many of these jobs are basically just sinecures.

I have this theory that there will be push factors and pull factors that will lead a lot of millennials to exit the white collar workforce in their late 40s and early 50s and maybe pursue more "salt of the earth" type, traditional jobs where the value of what your job does for society is more tangible.

The push is that I think a lot of that kind of work can be replaced by AI, or simply better process automation. Every Canadian company I've worked for has an army of people who manually move data around or build simple spreadsheets for higher-ups on request. It seems like they're just temporary workarounds for legacy databases that were built up to 20 years ago, and the world has moved on.

The pull is that millennials are a more idealistic generation than previous ones, and they're more sensitive to things like alienation from work. Many of them chose corporate, white collar work rather than lower paying, more societally "valuable" jobs since they needed money. In middle age, they'll still need money, but many of them won't be in quite the dire straits they were in, say, 2009. A lot of them will inherit money from dying parents which gives them some financial padding. They'll also be in the midst of midlife crises where they have to redefine who they are. In the past, they took white collar jobs because they felt that, being an educated- almost overeducated - generation, they needed to uphold their status by taking white collar jobs that, at least on paper, require university. More than twenty years after graduating, the need to prove one's self kind of fades away. I can see a lot of them jumping ship from corporate jobs with made-up titles to fill needed roles in more hands-on labour that's needed for society to function.

My entourage is almost all white collar Gen Xers, and I've noticed a lot of guys around 50 that I know are talking about ditching office jobs to drive sidewalk snow removal chenillettes, or selling chain saws at a Husqvarna store.

[niwell]

I actually have a friend (married, 2 kids) who left his corporate graphic design gig to do snow removal and manage summer maintenance teams for the City of Guelph. He's a great artist but couldn't handle that corporate lifestyle and now prefers to do graphic design stuff on the side with much less stress.

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by Acajack

My entourage is almost all white collar Gen Xers, and I've noticed a lot of guys around 50 that I know are talking about ditching office jobs to drive sidewalk snow removal chenillettes, or selling chain saws at a Husqvarna store.

You've described me and my retirement plan. I've spent nearly 35 years pushing bits around and wouldn't mind going home at the end of the day knowing I did something tangible. And I wouldn't mind not doing 200 things at once for a change.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Nashe

You've described me and my retirement plan. I've spent nearly 35 years pushing bits around and wouldn't mind going home at the end of the day knowing I did something tangible. And I wouldn't mind not doing 200 things at once for a change.

I've got my eye on a few post-retirement occupations, and while they're not office jobs, they won't involve me getting my hands too dirty either.

[MolsonExport]

I know a lot of professors who retire to be....professors (at some other institution, often overseas). Few retire completely; most still churn out papers and attend conferences until their mid to late seventies.

[GreaterMontréal]

"I have decided to instruct my ministry to process applications for permanent residence from family reunification applicants who have received a CSQ (Quebec Selection Certificate) issued by your ministry, i.e. the equivalent of approximately 20,500 requests dated January 31, 2024,” writes Mr. Miller in his missive.

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle...seuils-legault

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I have this theory that there will be push factors and pull factors that will lead a lot of millennials to exit the white collar workforce in their late 40s and early 50s and maybe pursue more "salt of the earth" type, traditional jobs where the value of what your job does for society is more tangible.

I think that's already happening to some degree. If nothing else, some variation of that is at least the "Millennial Dream". Certainly amongst my white collar friends & acquaintances, nearly everyone seems to have some sort of intention (in varying degrees of seriousness) to quit their job and become an off grid homesteader, or a small business owner or entrepreneur, or an artisan, or move to a small town in Italy and just life a quiet, itinerant life, or something along those lines.

Likewise for Gen Z's as well, as in many cases they've just skipped the white collar office stage entirely and gone on to pursue their hobbies as a career since there's no tangible benefit of doing otherwise.

I mean, no one has every really enjoyed, or aspired to live the 9-5 office grind. The calculus has always just been that that's the easiest route to a stable, well-paying job that guarantees all the traditional trappings of middle/upper-middle class life. This guarantee is now breaking down, and the writing is on the wall for the future viability of many of these career paths, which ultimately begs the question - why bother?

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Most of the useless jobs aren't things like Instagrammers (these are useless jobs too, but only a tiny minority of people can eke out even a middle class living off social media), but a lot of corporate white collar work. Also many white collar government and institutional jobs, as opposed to front-line service workers in these fields. The fact that the Federal civil service grew by 20% or more since Covid with no appreciable gains in efficiency or any sense that things are running any better suggests that many of these jobs are basically just sinecures.

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if the Canadian federal civil service have become one of the western world's most bloated and inefficient governmental organization. I've had friends who used to work for the Hong Kong or Singaporean Civil Service, who couldn't make a successful career transition in Ottawa. All of them quit because of the politics, ineptitude and inertia in their departments. They ended up thriving in the private sector and half of them decamped to NYC recently, but that's because the private sector still rewards performance.

The push is that I think a lot of that kind of work can be replaced by AI, or simply better process automation. Every Canadian company I've worked for has an army of people who manually move data around or build simple spreadsheets for higher-ups on request. It seems like they're just temporary workarounds for legacy databases that were built up to 20 years ago, and the world has moved on.

The big Canadian grocers, big banks and insurance companies have embarrassingly antique IT systems, and it speaks to Canada's lagging productivity and profound lack of investment in the future. Compared to Canadian offices of American and foreign MNCs, the technology/systems available to employees is night and day.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

I mean, no one has every really enjoyed, or aspired to live the 9-5 office grind. The calculus has always just been that that's the easiest route to a stable, well-paying job that guarantees all the traditional trappings of middle/upper-middle class life. This guarantee is now breaking down, and the writing is on the wall for the future viability of many of these career paths, which ultimately begs the question - why bother?

I think a part of it is that people piled too much into the white collar jobs and universities, and the supply-demand balance shifted such that what used to be solid middle class white collar jobs ended up being well below middle class wages and fell behind many skilled blue collar jobs. And as mentioned above a lot of these jobs are semi-obsolete or just not that productive while the blue collar jobs were less automated.

It's still a tricky question because many blue collar jobs have difficult to quantify drawbacks like harsher hours and physical stress or health risk. But the low end white collar jobs paying something like $50-60k a year in Vancouver or Toronto these days won't even really support a working couple in a 2 BR apartment.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Here is the catch 22 though when a population collapses: quality of life will greatly diminish and economic systems will collapse (of all forms), which will lead to far greater political instability, which means war and famine will be far more likely to occur, which means people will be far far far less likely to care about such things as the environment, sustainable energy, and the protection of animals.

In the end, a population free fall will likely end up being worse for the environment than a stable or slightly increasing population scenario.

That’s not to mention the cultural losses.

I just saw that Seoul metro region in South Korea has by far the world’s lowest birth rate at 0.38 children per woman… that is an insanely troubling statistic, we may see South Korea completely implode in our lifetimes.

On the bright side at least there will be no more cringe K-Pop boy bands.

On the very bad side that means the near disappearance of gorgeous Korean women…

On the other hand, South Korea has over 51 million people living in an area about 1/10th the size of British Columbia so less people might not be bad thing.

As I've said before, AI and robotics will make a lot of people superfluous anyway.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by whatnext

On the other hand, South Korea has over 51 million people living in an area about 1/10th the size of British Columbia so less people might not be bad thing.

As I've said before, AI and robotics will make a lot of people superfluous anyway.

I hope you mean their labour.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by someone123

I think a part of it is that people piled too much into the white collar jobs and universities, and the supply-demand balance shifted such that what used to be solid middle class white collar jobs ended up being well below middle class wages and fell behind many skilled blue collar jobs. And as mentioned above a lot of these jobs are semi-obsolete or just not that productive while the blue collar jobs were less automated.

This is very true. When I was a kid, Mom & Dad didn't care what we wanted to study BUT we were going to university. Full stop. You can do whatever you want but you are going to get those 2 letters behind your name. This, of course, was not just social attitudes but also educational priorities by school boards. They did everything and anything to gear kids towards university. If you didn't go there you were considered "uneducated" regardless if you went to college for years to get a trade.

Educational attainment directly follows what your parents did and hence getting a degree, regardless of how useful or even if you want one, is now so grained into our youth and education system that college is still second best at best. This is why we have such a highly educated workforce but at the same time such a poorly trained one. Most northern European countries have higher per-capita GDP than Canda but often have significantly lower university attainment because a skilled trade is valued by society in Europe whereas in Canada it is still seen as manual labour for the uneducated "working class".

[Spocket]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

This is very true. When I was a kid, Mom & Dad didn't care what we wanted to study BUT we were going to university. Full stop. You can do whatever you want but you are going to get those 2 letters behind your name. This, of course, was not just social attitudes but also educational priorities by school boards. They did everything and anything to gear kids towards university. If you didn't go there you were considered "uneducated" regardless if you went to college for years to get a trade.

Educational attainment directly follows what your parents did and hence getting a degree, regardless of how useful or even if you want one, is now so grained into our youth and education system that college is still second best at best. This is why we have such a highly educated workforce but at the same time such a poorly trained one. Most northern European countries have higher per-capita GDP than Canda but often have significantly lower university attainment because a skilled trade is valued by society in Europe whereas in Canada it is still seen as manual labour for the uneducated "working class".

I can't disagree with what you've said but a lot of the blame for the lack of value in getting a degree of any kind is how useless they've become. I mean, we can't run an economy on social theories and that's what a lot of these degrees amount to. A lot of these degrees are just proof of indoctrination of one form or another. I'm always reminded of a line from a movie which I can't recall the name of right now but to paraphrase, "You spent $40000 on an education you could have gotten for three bucks in late fees at the local library." And now, with the internet, you don't even need to worry about library fees but, of course, the information can't necessarily be trusted.

In any case, it is still problematic that you need a multi-thousand dollar degree just to work for minimum wage in a mail room.

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

This is very true. When I was a kid, Mom & Dad didn't care what we wanted to study BUT we were going to university. Full stop. You can do whatever you want but you are going to get those 2 letters behind your name. This, of course, was not just social attitudes but also educational priorities by school boards. They did everything and anything to gear kids towards university. If you didn't go there you were considered "uneducated" regardless if you went to college for years to get a trade.

Mine were the opposite. Let me figure out what I enjoyed (it took a few years of HS). To my teacher's and guidance counsellors horror I took a mish-mash of courses all the way from drafting to business typing to accounting to political science and physics. Figured out I liked programming so went to a trade school for a couple of years and never looked back. At that time I was fortunate enough to be able to summon up tuition and book money with a summer job between years. Don't have a single letter after my name. But also zero debt when I graduated, and a paid-for car.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

They did everything and anything to gear kids towards university. If you didn't go there you were considered "uneducated" regardless if you went to college for years to get a trade.

I would guess this relates to our supply problems too. We need construction workers and healthcare providers and 50% of the younger workforce is made up of temporarily embarrassed 1970's arts professors. Then this is "fixed" by bringing in poorly targeted labour that may not even be a net contributor in the key skilled fields overall.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by acottawa

It is hard to tell. Such a huge portion of the population does jobs that are more or less optional (i.e. society would not really be affected if nobody was doing that job). 1980s Canada functioned as a fairly modern economy with 25 million for example.

A lot of the infrastructure that still serves Canada today was a product of the 1960s-1980s. Most of the housing stock. Much of the large scale infrastructure (power stations, military investment, highways, bridges, railways, transit). Built with half the people.

Scandinavia today doesn’t have a population much larger than Canada of the 1980s, yet it seems to get more per body in terms of output or infrastructure or being a force on the world stage.

Mostly, Canada’s late era growth maxed out the legacy that had been built prior to 1990. What does another 20 million bodies get this country? A dozen more Miltons ringing the GTA? More Amazon depots? A bigger oligopoly in various sectors? More condo towers?

When the skyscrapers in our cities reflect the industrial might of a developing country and not just a scheme of pumping up housing, I’ll be more supportive of numbers to support that. Until the mindset of 21st century Canada moves beyond houses and (mediocre) healthcare, I don't see what 50, 60, or 70 million matters. Give me a vibe of aiming for near France in terms of stature, and I’ll support growth. Otherwise, what’s the point, except to make accountants happier with the metric on paper?

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I have this theory that there will be push factors and pull factors that will lead a lot of millennials to exit the white collar workforce in their late 40s and early 50s and maybe pursue more "salt of the earth" type, traditional jobs where the value of what your job does for society is more tangible.

The push is that I think a lot of that kind of work can be replaced by AI, or simply better process automation. Every Canadian company I've worked for has an army of people who manually move data around or build simple spreadsheets for higher-ups on request. It seems like they're just temporary workarounds for legacy databases that were built up to 20 years ago, and the world has moved on.

The pull is that millennials are a more idealistic generation than previous ones, and they're more sensitive to things like alienation from work. Many of them chose corporate, white collar work rather than lower paying, more societally "valuable" jobs since they needed money. In middle age, they'll still need money, but many of them won't be in quite the dire straits they were in, say, 2009. A lot of them will inherit money from dying parents which gives them some financial padding. They'll also be in the midst of midlife crises where they have to redefine who they are. In the past, they took white collar jobs because they felt that, being an educated- almost overeducated - generation, they needed to uphold their status by taking white collar jobs that, at least on paper, require university. More than twenty years after graduating, the need to prove one's self kind of fades away. I can see a lot of them jumping ship from corporate jobs with made-up titles to fill needed roles in more hands-on labour that's needed for society to function.

I have never heard anyone suggest this before, but now that you've said it, I'm inclined to agree.

We're already seeing a big preview of this when it comes to pastimes/hobbies. The last few years have seen a huge interest by a lot of millennials in "tangible" hobbies - things like baking sourdough, gardening, home canning, crocheting, woodworking, brewing beer, etc. I read an article not too long ago talking about this phenomenon, what the article called "grandma hobbies" - older, more hands on hobbies/practices that were largely dying before millennials revived them.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Spocket

I can't disagree with what you've said but a lot of the blame for the lack of value in getting a degree of any kind is how useless they've become. I mean, we can't run an economy on social theories and that's what a lot of these degrees amount to. A lot of these degrees are just proof of indoctrination of one form or another. I'm always reminded of a line from a movie which I can't recall the name of right now but to paraphrase, "You spent $40000 on an education you could have gotten for three bucks in late fees at the local library." And now, with the internet, you don't even need to worry about library fees but, of course, the information can't necessarily be trusted.

In any case, it is still problematic that you need a multi-thousand dollar degree just to work for minimum wage in a mail room.

Even for degrees that are nominally technical, they can be surprisingly useless. As an IT consultant, I feel like little of what I learned getting my computer science degree is actually useful in my work, and that I probably could have just did a 2 year apprenticeship in sysadmin or programming right out of high school and been better prepared for an IT career than I was as a university graduate.

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

This is very true. When I was a kid, Mom & Dad didn't care what we wanted to study BUT we were going to university. Full stop. You can do whatever you want but you are going to get those 2 letters behind your name. This, of course, was not just social attitudes but also educational priorities by school boards. They did everything and anything to gear kids towards university. If you didn't go there you were considered "uneducated" regardless if you went to college for years to get a trade.

Educational attainment directly follows what your parents did and hence getting a degree, regardless of how useful or even if you want one, is now so grained into our youth and education system that college is still second best at best. This is why we have such a highly educated workforce but at the same time such a poorly trained one. Most northern European countries have higher per-capita GDP than Canda but often have significantly lower university attainment because a skilled trade is valued by society in Europe whereas in Canada it is still seen as manual labour for the uneducated "working class".

I guess I was ... lucky? ... enough that it was my mom who went through this, getting the "university or you're disowned" treatment from my grandparents, and that she realized it wasn't the right path for everyone. And my dad did agricultural trade school that lead to a much more successful career than hers. So both of them were very much on the "what ever path seems best suited to you" train when it came to my siblings and me.

It's worked out pretty well for 3 our of 4 of us so far, I went the college route and have a decent construction office job, my sister did college for baking and has a bakery job she likes, and my brother did cabinetmaking apprenticeship / red seal and is now a foreman at a cabinetmaking shop. My other brother is still figuring things out, hasn't worked in his education field yet but also only has 2 years of college invested rather than 4 years of uni.

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Even for degrees that are nominally technical, they can be surprisingly useless. As an IT consultant, I feel like little of what I learned getting my computer science degree is actually useful in my work, and that I probably could have just did a 2 year apprenticeship in sysadmin or programming right out of high school and been better prepared for an IT career than I was as a university graduate.

I'll echo that. I learned more in one summer on-the-job (programming) between years of college than the whole second year. IT (probably more than any other) is such a moving target that a university degree is out-of-date too quickly.