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from the Londoner     

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The times aren’t the only thing changing; job markets are, too

In real estate the three words for success are location, location, location. In career counselling the new buzz words are life-long learning, global economy and uncertainty. It’s a brand new world where que cera cera (what will be, will be), no longer works.

To be able to make it in the new millennium we have to be taught to be flexible. Our children will have to be fast and smart to keep up with the new trends. They will have to be problem solvers, team leaders and be able to communicate via the new technologies of notebooks, palm pilots, pagers and video conferencing.

Large corporations like Bombardier, Celistica, Nortel, CNR are no longer safe havens for life-long careers. Face it, they are interested in the bottom line. It’s not the employee security and well-being that is paramount. The shareholder’s profit margins with a ‘never enough’ philosophy is paramount.

Employment will be uncertain and job security with all of the perks of health care, paid vacation and sick leave will be a distant memory. It will be replaced by contract and part-time careers where we work for a definite or indefinite period of time at a negotiated rate of salary depending on the laws of supply and demand. Our children will have to zig zag between jobs with constant upgrading.

Ambiguity will be part of our everyday lives, the only thing certain will be uncertainty. We will have to save to carry us over our down times. The age of retirement will be tied to our health - the healthy will have lifetime employment and the sick will try to get by on their savings. 

So let’s look at where the jobs will be in 2005, think global and look local. Diamond Aircraft and Trojan Technologies are both London-based, but their market is the world.

Small business, accounting, nursing, pharmacists, doctors, teachers, engineers, skilled trades, marketing, gerontology, police services, social work, midwifery, fitness and recreation careers are in vogue.

The factory jobs will slowly disappear and will represent only two per cent of the labour force. Low cost, off shore labour in China or India will replace the repetitive jobs of our unskilled or uneducated work force. The brain will replace the muscle and the arm will slowly shrivel.

My counsel for you, the parent, to have happy, successful children is to encourage them to have a broad based education. Languages are the key to communication – French, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin. In Europe the students learn three languages and no one gives it a lot of thought. In Canada two languages seem to be a burden. Maths and sciences, the arts and technologies makes one a marketable entity.

I have a few suggestions that may help.

1) Inform your children that all the rules of work have changed.

2) Post secondary education is a must; there are few places for the high school graduate.

3) Parents have to pass on the idea that work is positive and there are exciting, good careers for those who put forth their best effort. There are career opportunities for those who are motivated and want to make a difference.

 

 


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