THE WAR ON COLLEGE EDUCATION. PART 2

I was at the Target store in Emeryville today. It”s a fairly large store with 12 checkout lines – but only 1 live cashier was on duty. Customers were encouraged to use the self-checkout registers instead. From a practical standpoint, customers didn’t have much choice. There was a long line of people waiting for the 1 live cashier. The same thing is happening at supermarkets everywhere. Supermarkets and lots of other stores are replacing cashiers with self-checkout registers. Did you read that Amazon just opened its first 100% self-service convenience store in Seattle? It’s like a 7-11, but with no cashiers, none at all. Amazon plans to open these stores all over the country.

According to a new study by the McKinsey Global Institute, robots and automation will eliminate 800 million jobs around the world by 2030. As shocking as this number may sound, it is in line with other studies on the same subject. The jobs most likely to be eliminated by automation are low-skilled, low paying, repetitive jobs. You don’t need a crystal ball to know this is coming. Just look at what’s happening to cashiers. And it isn’t just cashiers. All sorts of jobs are being eliminated by automation and robots.  The jobs of the future will require more education than the jobs that are disappearing. What will happen to the U.S. if our educational system is producing mostly high school graduates who are only qualified to work at the kind of jobs that are disappearing?