Comment by lisbbb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lisbbb | Hacker News Reader

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The ramifications of losing all or nearly all of the tech jobs in the US is that the last "good" place to find better paying work that had a fairly low barrier to entry is now gone. I think that has major consequences for the US economy. I'm 52 and I can't just go back to school and re-tool to become a doctor or a lawyer now. I spent so many years becoming excellent and what I do, including higher degrees and certifications (I never really believed in certs, mind you, I always thought it was a giant scam).

Everything I look into as far as 2nd career goes has a very high barrier to entry and then there's the ever-present ageism barrier to fight, too.

I'm fortunate in that I have enough money to maybe just be retired, but most of you aren't anywhere close to being that financially independent. It's going to be ugly.

I knew for years that the offshoring blitz would finally reach critical mass and I was correct. Now it is an economic conflagration.

This is a big issue for young people, too. Every white collar career path is very on-rails now - you're expected to get a degree in XYZ and then get a fresh grad job as a Level 1 XYZer and so on.

So the stakes are drastically higher for 18 year olds picking their college majors. It's effectively a life commitment for a specific career path, and there's a lot of anxiety among students because they don't know if the career path they're betting the farm on will still be be viable by the time they graduate. There's also a sense that if you can't manage to find work in the field you majored in within a year or two of graduating, you've fallen off the track and are condemned to DoorDashing forever.

I'm always amazed at how many older people I know (especially 60+) spent their twenties directionless and then started a decent paying career in their 30s, often by simply learning how to do something and getting a job doing it. I'm not sure what policy platform would make that possible again, but accomplishing it would alleviate a ton of the anxiety that young people have today.

> and re-tool to become a doctor or a lawyer now

It's worse than that. Who is going to pay the doctors and lawyers (and other folks providing services) if there are no more US jobs that product stuff for export.

And it's not even about services. Who is going to pay the home builders, electricians, plumbers, etc in a world where there is no money flowing into the US economy from the outside

Exactly my thoughts. A free market tends towards specialization which makes the market more efficient and therefore more competitive. As specialization increases it becomes more critical that one chooses and specializes their career early on. But this is unfair to young people who often have no idea what to do. Hence luck plays an increasing role, which is again the opposite of fairness.

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