The Jobs That are Disappearing for Good

The job landscape in the US has been in the process of dramatic change, even prior the start of the recession. Two of the main reasons that these jobs are disappearing are advances in technology and the opportunity for companies to outsource work to offshore locales where labor costs are a fraction of what they are here.

Advances in workplace technology, especially where work can be automated, are responsible for the downsizing and ultimate disappearance in these areas:

Automation has been cutting into the numbers of put postal service mail sorters for years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates that 57,000 jobs were lost between 2004 and 2009 and estimates that another 30% will lose their jobs in the occupation by 2018. It’s no secret that job erosion has been exacerbated increased communication via phone, e-mail and cloud computing but the main reason is that robots have replacing people in the process.

Process automation is also putting a huge dent in jobs related to office and administrative support workers. From 2004 to 2009 about 300,000 administrative jobs disappeared, a trend that will speed up over the next few years. Many of the same reasons that postal work is diminishing are the same administrative work including digital communication and filing, voicemail, and email.

Jobs are also heading offshore that have historically paid well for unskilled workers. These jobs include:

Manufacturing jobs where employees are well-paid for positions that require only modest training and a high school diploma. It’s relatively easy for companies find equally skilled workers for pennies on the dollar.

Lower offshore wages are also killing jobs such as seamstresses and textile workers. Sewing machine operator jobs fell by 77,000 from 2004 to 2009 with approximately the same amount of losses in forecasted for the next five years. Related occupations like hand sewing, fabric mending and textile knitting are also heading to other countries.

In occupations that saw the steepest declines as determined by BLS data, job losses were about even with male oriented job losses in manufacturing being equaled by losses in office administration, textiles, and related industries which were dominated by women.

The job market that is evolving, however, looks like it will favor women, at least the near future.  Women are making more progress in education and the industries which are hiring, receiving almost 60 percent of bachelor’s and master’s degrees and dominating the position in growing industries such as the health-care sector.

The key for workers who have lost jobs in these disappearing sectors is to learn skills that can be applied to growing industries. As lower skilled jobs head offshore, skilled positions in the US could still pay solid wages.