The Next Big Blue-Collar Job Is Coding

...Politicians routinely bemoan the loss of good blue-collar jobs. Work like that is correctly seen as a pillar of civil middle-class society. And it may yet be again. What if the next big blue-collar job category is already here—and it’s programming?

...In Kentucky, mining veteran Rusty Justice decided that code could replace coal. He cofounded Bit Source, a code shop that builds its workforce by retraining coal miners as programmers. Enthusiasm is sky high: Justice got 950 applications for his first 11 positions. Miners, it turns out, are accustomed to deep focus, team play, and working with complex engineering tech. “Coal miners are really technology workers who get dirty,” Justice says.

The Next Big Blue-Collar Job Is Coding

We all know the robots are coming. The middle class is disappearing. Jobs are disappearing. Guy jobs are disappearing. Only health care is growing. And maybe education. All chick stuff.

But coding, programming is getting hot. Not the high-stakes sexy stuff, but "the equivalent of skilled work at a Chrysler plant."

These sorts of coders won’t have the deep knowledge to craft wild new algorithms for flash trading or neural networks. Why would they need to? That level of expertise is rarely necessary at a job. But any blue-collar coder will be plenty qualified to sling Java­Script for their local bank. That’s a solidly middle-class job, and middle-class jobs are growing: The national average salary for IT jobs is about $81,000 (more than double the national average for all jobs), and the field is set to expand by 12 percent from 2014 to 2024, faster than most other occupations.

... the real heroes are people who go to work every day and turn out good stuff—whether it’s cars, coal, or code.

Looks like the biggest glitch is lack of diversity in the field. And there are good rea$on$ to get on it.

Tech Still Doesn’t Get Diversity. Here’s How to Fix It

...Even a cursory look at voluntary disclosures to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by American tech firms reveals huge racial disparities in the tech workforce compared to the private sector overall.

...Adobe’s workforce is 69 percent white and Apple’s 56 percent. Google? 59 percent. Microsoft? 58 percent. The list goes on. Black people, Latinos, and Native Americans are underrepresented in tech by 16 to 18 percentage points compared with their presence in the US labor force overall.

...“For every 10 percent increase in racial and ethnic diversity on the senior-executive team,” the report stated, “earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) rise 0.8 percent.”

What’s more, companies in the top quartile in terms of racial diversity are 35 percent more likely to have higher financial returns than the national median in their industry. In fact, one study by Intel and Dalberg found that the tech industry “could generate an additional $300-$370 billion each year if the racial/ethnic diversity of tech companies’ workforces reflected that of the talent pool.”

And just to be clear:

Blue-collar worker

In English-speaking countries, a blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs non-agricultural manual labour. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled manufacturing, mining, sanitation, custodial work, oil field work, construction, mechanical maintenance, warehousing, firefighting, technical installation and many other types of physical work. Often something is physically being built or maintained.

In contrast, the white-collar worker typically performs work in an office environment and may involve sitting at a computer or desk. A third type of work is a service worker (pink collar) whose labour is related to customer interaction, entertainment, sales or other service-oriented work. Many occupations blend blue, white or pink industry categorizations.

Blue-collar work is often paid hourly wage-labor, although some professionals may be paid by the project or salaried. There is a wide range of payscales for such work depending upon field of specialty and experience.

a reply to: soficrow

If I understand, and I may not. Coding is going to be automated as well.

Skilled trades are not going away yet. When you have robot changing oil and doing brake jobs I will start to worry.

a reply to: soficrow

IMO GUI"s are easily taking over this aspect. My CAM program at work can post out machine code based from minimal input.
Websites have evolved to drag and drop with incorporated links. It may be true now that his is the new blue collar work but it, like human assembly line will be short lived.

Will there ever again be a large number of human hands to do work that is valuable? I don't know.

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: soficrow

If I understand, and I may not. Coding id going to be automated as well.

Skilled trades are not going away yet. When you have robot changing oil and doing brake jobs I will start to worry.

Automated coding is a fair ways off. But skilled trades? Definitely on the way out.

originally posted by: JinMI
a reply to: soficrow

IMO GUI"s are easily taking over this aspect. My CAM program at work can post out machine code based from minimal input.
Websites have evolved to drag and drop with incorporated links. It may be true now that his is the new blue collar work but it, like human assembly line will be short lived.

Will there ever again be a large number of human hands to do work that is valuable? I don't know.

Governments and everyone are ripping their hair out 'cuz jobs are disappearing almost as fast as they appear. Flexibility, constant learning are needed to stay employed. And even then, the job market is shrinking fast.

a reply to: soficrow

Agreed. In the capitalistic society we have, it is inevitable that the job market will shrink. It raises the question. Is capitalism a dead end strategy?

I'm not an economist but it seems that way looking forward from where we are now.

a reply to: soficrow

Developer salaries will continue to go down as the general coding jobs continues to become simpler. Right now, most big companies outsource the coding to large contracting firms at bargain rates who hire overseas talent. So, the coders, generally are not considered as company "workforce" or in the average IT salaries in mentioned in the article. IT employees are generally the software architects, program managers and a ton of middle management who do nothing at all

The folks who crank out the code... Most of those jobs have been outsourced to the lowest bidder.

a reply to: soficrow

Uhm , I'm not sure I buy into those numbers and the diversity bit?

I have been in the Engineering industry for 20 years and consulted for most big companies you can think off. I know its anecdotal evidence, but when it comes to tech whitey is the minority from what I have seen.

Interesting that the articles study was related to the same companies that benefit from hiring Foreign H1 Visa workers . Interesting the timing as well?

Something doesn't add up, especially when Studies indicates a trend that most Engineers are not US Born?
www.prb.org...


I see some double speak going on here.

a reply to: Zarniwoop

Yep.

Like the title says: Blue collar.

originally posted by: Zarniwoop
a reply to: soficrow

Developer salaries will continue to go down as the general coding jobs continues to become simpler. Right now, most big companies outsource the coding to large contracting firms at bargain rates who hire overseas talent. So, the coders, generally are not considered as company "workforce" or in the average IT salaries in mentioned in the article. IT employees are generally the software architects, program managers and a ton of middle management who do nothing at all

The folks who crank out the code... Most of those jobs have been outsourced to the lowest bidder.

That's why you need to go a level above to learn architecture rather than the ability to just code.

a reply to: interupt42

...when it comes to tech whitey is the minority from what I have seen.

By tech you mean the low-level grunt workers, right? Not the execs, managers or decision-makers?

a reply to: soficrow

I'm saying that unless they hire on with a huge overseas firm, they ain't getting those blue collar jobs... they are already taken.

The demand will continue to be fulfilled by those firms who hire cheap labor from overseas.

What country you live in?


Careful with those stats, we got everybody from frontend guys to sysadmins calling themselves 'engineers' these days.

a reply to: Throes

That's why you need to go a level above to learn architecture rather than the ability to just code.

Typically those folks start out as coders then go to the next level over many years of learning the ropes.

originally posted by: soficrow
a reply to: interupt42

...when it comes to tech whitey is the minority from what I have seen.

By tech you mean the low-level grunt workers, right? Not the execs, managers or decision-makers?

I wouldn't say low level as most of those grunt workers can make more than the manager and decision-makers. However, yes when it comes to actual engineering knowledge and tech knowledge the majority are not American born from what I have seen.

Also those tech workers often choose to stay in the low-level grunt workers because they love what they do.

I have also seen directors hold grudges towards the guys that do the work, because they get paid more or near the same salaries. Its the penis syndrome for some.

In the management area I would say yes there are less minorities , but I wouldn't say a big difference from what i have see.

I would be curious how they came up with those numbers and who qualified as diversified, LOL.

a reply to: Zarniwoop

a reply to: soficrow

I'm saying that unless they hire on with a huge overseas firm, they ain't getting those blue collar jobs... they are already taken.

The demand will continue to be fulfilled by those firms who hire cheap labor from overseas.

I heard the big guy was putting America first and bringing all the jobs back to the USA.

Did I misunderstand?

a reply to: soficrow

I heard the big guy was putting America first and bringing all the jobs back to the USA.

Did I misunderstand?

Nah... that's what he said

I'd honestly like to see "some" of that happen, especially in the tech area, but I fear that ship has already sailed. The supply of domestic coders no longer exists to meet the demand of big tech companies. Effectively shutting down big companies through regulation would not go over too well.

a reply to: soficrow

I wouldn't call it a blue collar job, it's more of a no collar job, or white collar if you have to put it into anything.

The reality though, is that a lot of programming can be accomplished with just a few beginner courses. The people who do that, write very bad code with no concept towards memory footprint, runtime, concurrency, data structures, or a whole host of other things, but you can get people to do it. I struggle to call it skilled though. If anything it's like an engineer designs a building, gives the blueprints to a foreman, and the foreman uses some construction workers to build it.

The problem is, jobs following that model exist now and they have for years. Front end web devs can make as little as 15/hour right now and some jobs pay the same for entry level positions, especially at small companies.

Code monkeys have never been well paid, not middle class. In order to do that, you need actual software engineering principles. I wouldn't be surprised to see more companies try to go this route (that's basically what bootcamps are pushing) but it's giving up a lot of quality to do so. I suspect it won't work out well, because just having them on staff hasn't worked out well yet.

Artificial Intelligent monitoring systems are going to eliminate a lot of low level coding positions. The simple monitoring system has been tested for the last two years quite successfully. It is now in the process of being coded to actually fix the coding issues without a manual operator following it's instructions. Lower level coding jobs are going to be reduced drastically within the next 5 years.

My source: my husband created a monitor for his global corporation and has nearly completed the final software program. He is not the only one doing this, other IT corporations have been doing their own custom codes too.

People think coding is like brick-laying. Nothing is further from the truth. Most programmers spend most of their time defining what is worth coding. The actual coding part is the easy part. Figuring out what is worth doing is the hard part.

Jobs are going to come from culture. There will always be rich people and poor people. Jobs come from convincing the rich people their money is worth spending. It's not like the rich people will ever run out of money. The money always returns back to rich people. Jobs are just a means for returning money back to rich people.

Culture is the answer. Here is Hans Rosling explaining why. The last 2 minutes of the video will blow your mind apart:

www.ted.com...