The old local news model is dying because it's top heavy and has enormous overhead. Local news isn't dying though, and is as valuable as ever. It's just in the process of completely changing.
One person can now do more with 1/1000th the budget of a local Newspaper with the barrier to entry being hard work, good writing skills, social media savvy and a love of the place they are covering.
More money to these organizations will just keep them on life support longer. Now if they changed their model 100% that would be a completely different story.
The future of journalism will be a lot of small teams (1-4) of writers/journalists/personalities running their own show in their city or state.
The financial woes of the old news industry is a symptom. A change is needed.
Most departments are understaffed. Turns out all the negative press against police is having long term impacts on how many kids want to grow up and become a police officer.
Also property crimes always take a backseat to more violent crimes.
We have been seeing massive fishing net globs come ashore for the past few years on the Big Island of Hawaii. It's getting worse. My boys and I personally dragged a large chunk ashore this past year. They are extremely heavy and take a lot of work to move and dispose of all the netting. Here's the image: https://imgur.com/12U4FXg
It's a labor shortage more than anything else they listed. It's not an energy boom, weak dollar, Trump etc.
The question should be "why is this a surprise?"
Does our culture esteem people that work with their hands?
Do parents encourage their children to aspire to learn trade skills?
Does our educational system encourage students to learn trade skills and explore the trades as highly viable alternatives to going to college?
We've looked down at the trades and blue-collar work for decades. The evidence is everywhere. Of course there is a shortage, students have been listening to the adults in their lives, their peers, media outside of Mike Rowe etc and have heard the message loud and clear.
Solutions; I see two things that need to happen.
First, we need to reach and communicate to students and adults across the country that trade skills are valuable and a career in the trades is an outstanding option.
Create a more efficient, affordable and accessible resources for people to learn trade skills, no matter their location, age, income, nationality etc. We need to make it 10x easier for people to learn the skills that are in demand.
I’m working on both those solutions at Tradeskills.io
Definitely a lot to figure out!
A. Takes time for new workers to be adequately trained.
B. Takes even longer to get people that have been raised to look down on the trades to change their worldview and all of a sudden consider working with their hands, no matter how much money is involved.
I think it's both the dog and the owner and our culture that looks down on the trades, or blue collar work. Kids are being raised and taught to work hard so they can avoid working with their hands. Trade jobs are almost seen as a punishment and schools do nothing but funnel all students into the college pipeline.
In the vision of life that is projected for students, the trades do not find themselves anywhere in that vision. It should come as no surprise that we have a shortage right now, it should only surprise us that it's not worse. Immigrant labor has long hidden the fact that American's are raising their kids to avoid the trades, and we will all pay the price for it.
Online! We are building Tradeskills.io to make it easier for people to explore and learn trade skills online. I would love to hear more about the types of things you are now interested in learning since purchasing a home! I can be reached at [email protected]
:) They are having to pay higher wages. The wealthy in bigger cities are able to absorb these higher costs. It has a much bigger toll on the middle class in smaller cities because they have the same shortages, but less money to pay the increased costs.
There won't be more competition in the short term because still, only 3% of graduating high school students are even considering a career in the trades. It's going to take quite a while for the ship to turn around.
I would simplify it and say that learning trade skills is a better investment for most people than attending a 4-year college. Trade skills can be learned at a young age, right from home, where there is room and time to explore and enjoy the learning process. Why we wait until after high school to teach kids in-demand skills boggles my mind. All the pressure in the world arrives after high school. It's time to start paying the bills and to grow up. It's no wonder most kids go off to college because they have zero marketable skills upon hs graduation and college is a way to get an extra 4 years to acquire some skills.
The sad part of that is all the kids that get caught up in the college wave. They get pressured to go to a 4 year school, take on a mountain of debt for a degree (if they are fortunate to graduate) they most likely won't use. So many students would be better off exploring the different trades and finding one that they really enjoy. There are hundreds of them.
I've been working on a project lately to help people explore and learn the trades online. Tradeskills.io It started as a side project for me a number of years ago teaching people how to get into the appliance repair trade. I've had over 600 students all across the country and Canada go through my training. The trades can be learned online and I think tech will need to play a big part in this area of education in the coming years.
They are rising all across the country because there is a big shortage, and it's only going to get worse. Boomers are retiring faster than they are being replaced.
Optimum employment? When someone wants to get a project built in Portland Oregon the wait time this past year was about 3 months until you were lucky enough to land a contractor. Contractors can't find enough skilled help so everything takes longer.
There is a shortage of trades workers, and it's only going to get worse because the bulk of the workers are currently older and are retiring much, much faster than they are being replaced. We are just at the beginning of a crises level shortage. Labor prices will continue to rise and this will be absorbed by everyone.
I use this every day and it saves us a trip to our PO box unless we have something important to pick up. Snapping a picture of packages would be a huge upgrade.