7 ms·

The short list of jobs with high and rising pay

104 points by Futurebot 10y ago

beatpanda 10y ago
At some point, the owners of capital are going to have to just start distributing a greater share of their profit as wages. Any other solution for stagnant wages is just making excuses for antisocial behavior.
- madengr 10y ago
  Or they just use it to buy other companies. The buyouts and mergers over the last year are tiring.
- mback00 10y ago
  Um... the revolution of productivity that his happening in the workplace will likely enhance social behaviour and especially creative behaviour. The last revolution was about applying personal computing to the work environment - which did eliminate a lot of jobs, but created many more creative ones... and also brought about a much greater connectedness between human beings - first through email and then through social media. The next revolution is through robotics and one that will free many people from mundane tasks to much more creative ones... Bringing manufacturing back to the garage, and opening the opportuity for profit to many more people. In the same way, robotics/ai will also reduce traffic and provide a service where a person can have a physical presence virtually anywhere on the globe. We do not yet know the implications of the latest technological innovations - but history has definitely proven that each one only enhances not only our productivity (and "fun") but also our social connectedness.
  - azinman2 10y ago
    Why do robotics help the lower skilled (aka the largest mass of people)?
    - jdavis703 10y ago
      Well if communist theories are correct at a certain time the robots will be owned by the government (the people), and produce unlimited bounty. The idea being that people will only need to do minimal work. Now whether that works and we can figure out equitable distributions of that bounty remains to be seen (I'm pretty pessimistic it'll work, human greed will just get in the way).
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - PakG1 10y ago
    This seems like an overly idealistic perspective. but history has definitely proven that each one only enhances not only our productivity (and "fun") but also our social connectedness I think history has shown that overlords like rent seeking until disenfranchised poor people revolt violently or nations fall into war, making all the normal societal conflicts irrelevant. I am not sure social connectedness has improved. It may have improved in quantity, but not necessarily in quality. Check out how well people in cities know each other compared to decades ago. Of course, you need to compare apples to apples. Comparing disenfranchised situations yesterday to nice situations today is the same as comparing disenfranchised situations today to nice situations yesterday. Compare nice to nice. The whole idea about robotics and AI freeing people from mundane tasks is not new. Automation throughout history has always had good and bad consequences, but it's also fairly certain that such industrial revolutions have always been accompanied by upheaval and uncertainty, as power players try to use new technologies for both good and bad. The Victorian Internet about the invention of the telegraph is an excellent read for an example of how the more things change, the more they stay the same.
    - mback00 10y ago
      My argument is simply.... If you leave technical advancement alone and provide people freedom - not government oppression or try to kill innovation underneath of some set social theory... It works out, and it works out better in the long run. What would have happened if someone was regulating our speech right now in this forum? Would you stand for such oppression in the name of social correctness? It's going to work out... Just not in the old framework of the way you envision. Have a little faith.
      - PakG1 10y ago
        I'm not sure what is this old framework I supposedly envision, and I'm not sure how the example of regulating speech in this forum relates to or helps to explain anything. We used to be talking about the effects of new technology by itself on society, nothing else. Just not sure where you're going with this if you want to start bringing up all that other stuff.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  They don't have to. We have to force it with regulations. And if you still don't cooperate, we'll pull the enforcement of your patents and copyrights.
  - p4wnc6 10y ago
    Exactly right. If allowed, they will happily torch the commons and work on how to secure their own comforts while others suffer. The only socially responsible way to handle it is with enforced regulations. Yes, of course that presents it's own set of challenges and pitfalls, but there's just no other possibility.
- Trundle 10y ago
  Why wages? It seems backward to tie income to effort more so than the market wants to reward. How taxing it and distributing it as just transfer payments is making excuses for anti-social behaviour I have no idea. Do you want to see masses of people performing low or nil value tasks for forty hours a week? That's what unnecessarily tying income to jobs will lead to.
p4wnc6 10y ago
Love how 10 of the listed job categories are some form of managers. No rent seeking here folks ... move along.
- douche 10y ago
  Eventually we'll get to a point where it is just a circular hierarchy of managers managing other managers managing the first set of managers. Emails and meetings will fly around ceaselessly, while the machines churn away.
  - madengr 10y ago
    A friend and I had a similar theory about convenience stores, since they seem to sprout up like weeds. If everyone just shopped at everyone's else's store, it would spread the wealth.
  - p4wnc6 10y ago
    Sounds like the "ascended economy" recently discussed on Slate Star Codex [0]. [0] < http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/30/ascended-economy/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/30/ascended-economy/ > Edit: it struck me that in your scenario, it might be better referred to as the "ass-ended economy" har har har
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    The graphic doesn't say anything about how prevalent these jobs are, just which ones are high paying and have high pay growth. It should not be surprising that medical professionals and managers are in these categories. Trust me, we're far from your world of "managers managing managers all the way down". These jobs aren't growing on trees. Go look for an actual management job posting--you'll find that for every 1 management role most companies have, there are probably 100 non-manager roles open.
  - T0T0R0 10y ago
    There's almost certainly already a micro-economy of exactly that sort of thing happening at companies like Facebook. People sit around in offices, organizing daily stand ups about project planning, and assessing focus group reports for eye-motion-tracking data tied to Like buttons, and accelerometer metrics surrounding ringtone events.
madengr 10y ago
A link in the article shows a drastic drop in manufacturing during mid-90s. Ross Perot was spot on about NAFTA and the giant sucking sound: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/06/20/as-low-skilled-jobs-disappear-men-drop-out-of-the-workforce/ http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/06/20/as-low-skilled-job...
- analog31 10y ago
  Did those jobs move to Canada and Mexico? On the other hand, it's my understanding that NAFTA also provides for cross-border portability for some occupations, notably engineers.
  - joneholland 10y ago
    No, they moved to China.
    - adventured 10y ago
      No, China stole few manufacturing jobs. US manufacturing output is at an all-time high today. It hasn't decreased, it has significantly expanded since NAFTA was created. Productivity destroyed those jobs. The US is producing far more output, with far fewer manufacturing jobs. It's a replication of the productivity gains in farming previously. Workers have to move to other skill fields with growth, just as they did as farming's productivity soared.
      - jdavis703 10y ago
        Jobs can't be stolen. It's just a structured activity that we give worthless colored paper (or bits on a bank's server) to people for doing.
        jdavis703 10y ago
        Responding because I'm getting downvotes... I (an American) was hired at one company because the management felt the country where the company was started (not in the USA) had sub-par engineering talent. Now I don't believe that statement to be true, in this specific case or in general, but wouldn't that make me a thief? Should I be locked in jail for taking a job people thought they owned?
analog31 10y ago
I've often thought that Physician Assistant might be a decent gig. Pay isn't stratospheric, but you can work anywhere in the country (a factor for two career families) and the training costs can't possibly be as extreme as a full physician. There may be fewer "insider" investment opportunities available to physicians. Salary income for physicians is only part of their earning potential.
- madengr 10y ago
  How is pay for a dermatology PA? Don't they have a special designation?
- jseliger 10y ago
  This is an astute comment. I live with a physician and have met lots of physicians who wish they'd been PAs instead, for reasons I enumerate here: http://jakeseliger.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-nurse-or-physicians-assistant-instead-of-a-doctor-the-underrated-perils-of-medical-school http://jakeseliger.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-nu.... Even the name is a misnomer, because PAs increasingly practice autonomously, so the "assistant" part of the job title is increasingly a misnomer or historical curiosity. Among policy wonks, there's a meme going round about how healthcare jobs are the new manufacturing jobs. See here for one example: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/01/25/decline_of_manufacturing_rise_of_health_care.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/01/25/decline_of_ma....
  - GarrisonPrime 10y ago
    I am a physician. Really wish I was a PA instead. In fact, I've left medicine and would only consider doing it a gain as a PA, not an MD.
    - SiVal 10y ago
      Why would you not want to be (practice as) an MD, but would be willing to consider being a PA, especially when the much higher cost of becoming an MD (time, effort, money) isn't even a factor for you (you already paid and won't get a refund)? (I'm not challenging your choice; I'm hoping to learn something that might be useful to a younger relative of mine considering a medical career.)
Madmallard 10y ago
Mostly manager positions at the top. That's how you know society is falling apart. When it starts becoming an old boys club with shared resources among guys that don't do anything useful.
- juicenx 10y ago
  > shared resources among guys that don't do anything useful. Go be on a team with a shitty manager, I bet you'll soon find out that they are VERY useful...
  - gaius 10y ago
    That's middle, not upper management - and good middle managers are hard to come by.
- dimal 10y ago
  Has there ever been a time in which managers weren't making more money than everyone else? By your logic, society has always been falling apart. Every generation creates its own old boys club.
  - flukus 10y ago
    Making more is expected, that there wages are growing faster than the people under them is the exceptional part.
    - p4wnc6 10y ago
      I'm not sure making more is expected. In my other comment I mentioned e.g. sports teams or quant trading as examples where even average performing subordinates can make more than their managers. But yes, the decoupling of manager pay (fast growing) from subordinate pay (slow growing) is frightening. I don't see any evidence that the world gets more value from the activity of management now than previously, and in fact I see tons of evidence, say even just Moral Mazes to start, that managers actively destroy value for society in many cases.

104 points by Futurebot 10y ago

At some point, the owners of capital are going to have to just start distributing a greater share of their profit as wages. Any other solution for stagnant wages is just making excuses for antisocial behavior.

madengr 10y ago
Or they just use it to buy other companies. The buyouts and mergers over the last year are tiring.
mback00 10y ago
Um... the revolution of productivity that his happening in the workplace will likely enhance social behaviour and especially creative behaviour. The last revolution was about applying personal computing to the work environment - which did eliminate a lot of jobs, but created many more creative ones... and also brought about a much greater connectedness between human beings - first through email and then through social media. The next revolution is through robotics and one that will free many people from mundane tasks to much more creative ones... Bringing manufacturing back to the garage, and opening the opportuity for profit to many more people. In the same way, robotics/ai will also reduce traffic and provide a service where a person can have a physical presence virtually anywhere on the globe. We do not yet know the implications of the latest technological innovations - but history has definitely proven that each one only enhances not only our productivity (and "fun") but also our social connectedness.
- azinman2 10y ago
  Why do robotics help the lower skilled (aka the largest mass of people)?
  - jdavis703 10y ago
    Well if communist theories are correct at a certain time the robots will be owned by the government (the people), and produce unlimited bounty. The idea being that people will only need to do minimal work. Now whether that works and we can figure out equitable distributions of that bounty remains to be seen (I'm pretty pessimistic it'll work, human greed will just get in the way).
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- PakG1 10y ago
  This seems like an overly idealistic perspective. but history has definitely proven that each one only enhances not only our productivity (and "fun") but also our social connectedness I think history has shown that overlords like rent seeking until disenfranchised poor people revolt violently or nations fall into war, making all the normal societal conflicts irrelevant. I am not sure social connectedness has improved. It may have improved in quantity, but not necessarily in quality. Check out how well people in cities know each other compared to decades ago. Of course, you need to compare apples to apples. Comparing disenfranchised situations yesterday to nice situations today is the same as comparing disenfranchised situations today to nice situations yesterday. Compare nice to nice. The whole idea about robotics and AI freeing people from mundane tasks is not new. Automation throughout history has always had good and bad consequences, but it's also fairly certain that such industrial revolutions have always been accompanied by upheaval and uncertainty, as power players try to use new technologies for both good and bad. The Victorian Internet about the invention of the telegraph is an excellent read for an example of how the more things change, the more they stay the same.
  - mback00 10y ago
    My argument is simply.... If you leave technical advancement alone and provide people freedom - not government oppression or try to kill innovation underneath of some set social theory... It works out, and it works out better in the long run. What would have happened if someone was regulating our speech right now in this forum? Would you stand for such oppression in the name of social correctness? It's going to work out... Just not in the old framework of the way you envision. Have a little faith.
    - PakG1 10y ago
      I'm not sure what is this old framework I supposedly envision, and I'm not sure how the example of regulating speech in this forum relates to or helps to explain anything. We used to be talking about the effects of new technology by itself on society, nothing else. Just not sure where you're going with this if you want to start bringing up all that other stuff.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
They don't have to. We have to force it with regulations. And if you still don't cooperate, we'll pull the enforcement of your patents and copyrights.
- p4wnc6 10y ago
  Exactly right. If allowed, they will happily torch the commons and work on how to secure their own comforts while others suffer. The only socially responsible way to handle it is with enforced regulations. Yes, of course that presents it's own set of challenges and pitfalls, but there's just no other possibility.
Trundle 10y ago
Why wages? It seems backward to tie income to effort more so than the market wants to reward. How taxing it and distributing it as just transfer payments is making excuses for anti-social behaviour I have no idea. Do you want to see masses of people performing low or nil value tasks for forty hours a week? That's what unnecessarily tying income to jobs will lead to.

p4wnc6 10y ago

Love how 10 of the listed job categories are some form of managers. No rent seeking here folks ... move along.

douche 10y ago
Eventually we'll get to a point where it is just a circular hierarchy of managers managing other managers managing the first set of managers. Emails and meetings will fly around ceaselessly, while the machines churn away.
- madengr 10y ago
  A friend and I had a similar theory about convenience stores, since they seem to sprout up like weeds. If everyone just shopped at everyone's else's store, it would spread the wealth.
- p4wnc6 10y ago
  Sounds like the "ascended economy" recently discussed on Slate Star Codex [0]. [0] < http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/30/ascended-economy/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/30/ascended-economy/ > Edit: it struck me that in your scenario, it might be better referred to as the "ass-ended economy" har har har
- ryandrake 10y ago
  The graphic doesn't say anything about how prevalent these jobs are, just which ones are high paying and have high pay growth. It should not be surprising that medical professionals and managers are in these categories. Trust me, we're far from your world of "managers managing managers all the way down". These jobs aren't growing on trees. Go look for an actual management job posting--you'll find that for every 1 management role most companies have, there are probably 100 non-manager roles open.
- T0T0R0 10y ago
  There's almost certainly already a micro-economy of exactly that sort of thing happening at companies like Facebook. People sit around in offices, organizing daily stand ups about project planning, and assessing focus group reports for eye-motion-tracking data tied to Like buttons, and accelerometer metrics surrounding ringtone events.

madengr 10y ago

A link in the article shows a drastic drop in manufacturing during mid-90s. Ross Perot was spot on about NAFTA and the giant sucking sound: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/06/20/as-low-skilled-jobs-disappear-men-drop-out-of-the-workforce/ http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/06/20/as-low-skilled-job...

analog31 10y ago
Did those jobs move to Canada and Mexico? On the other hand, it's my understanding that NAFTA also provides for cross-border portability for some occupations, notably engineers.
- joneholland 10y ago
  No, they moved to China.
  - adventured 10y ago
    No, China stole few manufacturing jobs. US manufacturing output is at an all-time high today. It hasn't decreased, it has significantly expanded since NAFTA was created. Productivity destroyed those jobs. The US is producing far more output, with far fewer manufacturing jobs. It's a replication of the productivity gains in farming previously. Workers have to move to other skill fields with growth, just as they did as farming's productivity soared.
    - jdavis703 10y ago
      Jobs can't be stolen. It's just a structured activity that we give worthless colored paper (or bits on a bank's server) to people for doing.
      - jdavis703 10y ago
        Responding because I'm getting downvotes... I (an American) was hired at one company because the management felt the country where the company was started (not in the USA) had sub-par engineering talent. Now I don't believe that statement to be true, in this specific case or in general, but wouldn't that make me a thief? Should I be locked in jail for taking a job people thought they owned?

analog31 10y ago

I've often thought that Physician Assistant might be a decent gig. Pay isn't stratospheric, but you can work anywhere in the country (a factor for two career families) and the training costs can't possibly be as extreme as a full physician. There may be fewer "insider" investment opportunities available to physicians. Salary income for physicians is only part of their earning potential.

madengr 10y ago
How is pay for a dermatology PA? Don't they have a special designation?
jseliger 10y ago
This is an astute comment. I live with a physician and have met lots of physicians who wish they'd been PAs instead, for reasons I enumerate here: http://jakeseliger.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-nurse-or-physicians-assistant-instead-of-a-doctor-the-underrated-perils-of-medical-school http://jakeseliger.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-nu.... Even the name is a misnomer, because PAs increasingly practice autonomously, so the "assistant" part of the job title is increasingly a misnomer or historical curiosity. Among policy wonks, there's a meme going round about how healthcare jobs are the new manufacturing jobs. See here for one example: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/01/25/decline_of_manufacturing_rise_of_health_care.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/01/25/decline_of_ma....
- GarrisonPrime 10y ago
  I am a physician. Really wish I was a PA instead. In fact, I've left medicine and would only consider doing it a gain as a PA, not an MD.
  - SiVal 10y ago
    Why would you not want to be (practice as) an MD, but would be willing to consider being a PA, especially when the much higher cost of becoming an MD (time, effort, money) isn't even a factor for you (you already paid and won't get a refund)? (I'm not challenging your choice; I'm hoping to learn something that might be useful to a younger relative of mine considering a medical career.)

Madmallard 10y ago

Mostly manager positions at the top. That's how you know society is falling apart. When it starts becoming an old boys club with shared resources among guys that don't do anything useful.

juicenx 10y ago
> shared resources among guys that don't do anything useful. Go be on a team with a shitty manager, I bet you'll soon find out that they are VERY useful...
- gaius 10y ago
  That's middle, not upper management - and good middle managers are hard to come by.
dimal 10y ago
Has there ever been a time in which managers weren't making more money than everyone else? By your logic, society has always been falling apart. Every generation creates its own old boys club.
- flukus 10y ago
  Making more is expected, that there wages are growing faster than the people under them is the exceptional part.
  - p4wnc6 10y ago
    I'm not sure making more is expected. In my other comment I mentioned e.g. sports teams or quant trading as examples where even average performing subordinates can make more than their managers. But yes, the decoupling of manager pay (fast growing) from subordinate pay (slow growing) is frightening. I don't see any evidence that the world gets more value from the activity of management now than previously, and in fact I see tons of evidence, say even just Moral Mazes to start, that managers actively destroy value for society in many cases.