A parent's guide to preparing kids for 2025's job market. The economy is splitting into high-skill and low-skill work as automation and offshoring erase middle-class jobs. Your child needs to specialize deeply in either creative skills machines can't replicate or technical skills like coding.
One of the biggest changes I think is going to happen is with higher education, where people are going to learn. I get asked by parents all the time after I speak at colleges, universities, etc. What should I teach my kids in this world of a barbell economy where 0.1% of the population of the United States controls nearly 25% of the wealth, this is the first time since the Roaring Twenties people are really freaked out right now, right? The middle class is rapidly eroding, offshoring, outsourcing, etc. Jobs in Middle management will no longer exist. If you're a your boss has to tell you what to do when you walk into work every day, he can just as easily tell somebody in India or Costa Rica or China for a lot more cheaply. So people who are preparing for a college education need to understand how they're going to make themselves more marketable. And what I tell these parents, you need to go either deep into an art or deep into a science. Deep into an art is doing something that the machines can't do. Think, design, innovate. Come up with ways to actually control machines in a way that are beautiful artistically and aesthetically pleasing. Or deep into science, learn how to operate, control and code machines. If you're anything but deep in art, anything but deep into science, coming out in the class of 2025, you're going to be on the wrong side of the barbell.
