Why These Boots Are Made for Walking (Issue 696)
Guess what career path kids want to pursue now?
I know many of you reading my newsletter are white-collar professionals or young people in college. I suspect that most of you are pursuing a career in tech.
However, the tide is shifting for younger children (i.e., Gen Alpha).
Red Wing, the work boot brand, conducted a survey of 2,000 parents and their Gen Alpha children (ages 5-16) to see what they are thinking about the future of work and their careers.
85% of Gen Alpha kids want a hands-on physical job.
70% of parents would encourage their child to pursue a trade or blue-collar career, rising to 80% among parents who do trade work themselves.
68% of kids knew what trade and blue-collar jobs are; of those, 85% think that those are good careers and 88% think they’re important ones.
70% of kids who know what blue-collar jobs are want one when they grow up.
Some already have a trade in mind: firefighter (11%), construction worker (9%), electrician (8%), welder (7%), or carpenter (6%).
I can tell you that this shift differs from my childhood as a Gen X person. Parents and teachers discouraged us from pursuing a blue-collar career. Many of our parents didn’t have college degrees, and they worked blue-collar jobs. So, they wanted us to go to college, secure a good degree, and land a white-collar professional job to make more money than they did.
I was encouraged to pursue engineering, so I entered an undergraduate program in Mechanical Engineering at UNL. Later, I changed majors to psychology, discovered that an undergraduate degree wasn’t very useful, went on to get a Ph.D. in psych and studied human factors and HCI, and ended up designing software in Silicon Valley (IBM, Apple, eBay, Yahoo).
Computer science wasn’t a huge thing in the 80s, so I guess that’s why my high school advisor guided me into engineering instead. The whole tech push happened later with Millennials and Gen Z kids. They were told, “Get a CS degree, learn how to program, and head to Silicon Valley to get rich!”
However, AI is changing everything.
More and more tech companies are conducting massive layoffs every week. Entry-level tech roles are disappearing, since entry-level job activities can now supposedly be handled by a more senior employee managing AI agents and workflows.
“Much of the work junior employees used to do—Excel spreadsheets, making presentations, really doing the menial stuff—is being automated,” Dom explains. “Models like Claude are replacing some of the junior work… it’s going to result in much fewer analysts needed. The entry-level job as we know it, I think, is over.”
Source: AI Is Forcing a New Way Into the Workforce: How the Next Generation Succeeds as the First Job Disappears
I’m hearing about the impact of AI from my colleagues who still work in tech. In addition, some have shared what they are recommending for their children. I’ve also heard from my Gen Z kids about what they are experiencing in the working world and what is happening with their friends. FYI, one of my children is deep in the heart of Silicon Valley, pursuing a tech career. The other two decided to avoid my fate after watching me in that industry for almost 20 years. 🤣
So, if you work in tech, what are you experiencing? How has AI changed your world?
If you have children, what are you recommending that they study and pursue for a career now?
I keep hearing about this return to the blue-collar trades (and the need to buy good work boots). But I wonder how widespread the shift actually is.
Larry Cornett, Ph.D., is a career coach who spent 20+ years in Silicon Valley at Apple, IBM, Yahoo, eBay, and several startups as a designer, leader, and product and design executive. Whether you're fighting for a promotion, navigating a layoff, or planning your exit to independence, he combines executive experience with psychological insight to help ambitious professionals reclaim their power and build an Invincible Career.
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My daughter accepted a FT sales development representative (entry level) role following an internship at a major enterprise software provider that has been an early adopter of AI. But she never understood what she was selling and was convinced the buyers didn't understand it either. She wanted something she could see, touch, and understand. So she worked to find something else.
She'll be starting as an associate project manager at a commercial window and facade construction company in a few weeks. Hard hat and steel toed boots are part of the required equipment. Dad here had nothing to do with it, lol. The kids know.