Depression-Era Career Planning

A “longish reportish” this morning at the request of a Millennial subscriber (yes, there are a few bright ones) who wanted to know what jobs would be hot, and what would not, when the second depression eventually shows up.

Unlike some (dumbed-down and simple) sites, we’re not going to waste your time with some two-bit list of job titles.  Instead we’ll hash over macro-economic drivers and our Seven Major Life Systems view of things then apply  a career-pathing strategy.  After headlines, charts, and a lot more coffee, of course.

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14 thoughts on “Depression-Era Career Planning”

  1. “We are somewhat amused to see how some of the Millennial idols insist on exposing their lack of deep-thinking capability while wanting to hold on to withering fame. ”

    Phew tell me about it.. Even though I’ve pushed independent thinking and reading..heck read no one is hiding anything just playing the old shell game. But if your informed willing to read eventually you find the truth. Grrr a pet pieve of mine even with my own kids they schedule themselves so tight they don’t take the time to check out the facts.

    Well on a positive note.. I’m getting closer to having Alexa and Siri debate an issue.. Lol lol if I ever succeed that will be something humorous to watch.

  2. Water and wastewater treatment were excellent for me. Every one needs them. Enjoyed the retirement set up because most paid into same retirement was able move all over the state. This allowed greater knowledge of said field and didn’t grow stale. bought a piece ground with water electric sewer and lived in cheap

  3. Over the years, I discovered that during your working career, it is very important on who you associate with during working hours. During my last 25 years of working, I owned an insurance wholesaling business. Of the 400 insurance agents selling for me, 20% of the agents did 80% of the business. So who did I spend the most time with – the 20%. At work, associate with the best and hardest working employees. You will then become one of the best & hardest working employees who gets pay raises & promotions. Also, your boss is your best friend. The boss gives raises & promotions to his best employees who make him look good to his boss (everyone has to answer to somebody). Make sure he or she recognizes your talents. Be “Trump like” in promoting yourself. Every job is selling – whether you are selling yourself or a product. Also, always keep up with the changes in your industry. You need to keep growing mentally over your entire career to be the best.

    • One last thought. Look for ways to make the business more productive, competitive, & profitable and let the boss know your ideas. It will get you recognition for your talents & whether the boss or you get credit, it doesn`t matter. He or she will take care of you financially to keep you as an employee, and you will end up the boss.

      • Someone needs to explain this to the younger people in the workplace today..
        Years ago a man drove around in a milk truck door to door seeing how many gallons you needed eventually thry knew what your standard order was and a doorstep box sat beside the front door for him to drop the milk off. If you had a change in your weekly order you placed your slip in the box. I had one of those boxes up till the middle eighties when jobs started to be exported and the stay at home mom was unheard of.
        The milkman became the service of the past. Years ago it was one of my jobs to train in new workers . The problem the young kids with college degrees didn’t have motivation to work. They had a huge expectation and the need for a larger income to pay huge school loans many are salaried.
        Now today… there’s a major company has a wonderful group of products many of which I am sure you use just like me. For my area.. the company has only salaried employees there’s no motivation to sell. A big box store manager and I were just discussing this an hour ago. He was forced to cut back shelf space from forty foot to four foot. The reason no one wants to sell them the product.. the little companies in rural areas the same thing. What’s funny is you could wear a monkey suit and get sales. While the store manager and I were reminiscing about the old jobbers I mentioned heck if I was only younger lol lol he said if you decide to let all of us know we’ll start expanding shelf area for the products. Especially with super bowl coming up. There are some that still job out their products unfortunately those are very few now that modern technology and manufacturing overseas has taken over.
        Back in the day the people in jobs like that were either fired or called lazy or mr. congressman..

  4. Thanks Mr. Ure! This really opened my eyes and ill be honest, made me a little uncomfortable because it means i need to learn and grow. I needed this more than you know and ill be honest, i even knew. Thank you!

    • if you’re a local christian that goes to church and it’s your time to preach when the preacher goes away on vacation hit the Ezekiel chapter 23 verse 20 and watch all the women in the audience is face turn red

  5. Draw a line from Fargo to Little Rock to Wheeling to Saginaw, and back to Fargo. This is the “agribelt.” Although the big towns (Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, etc.) had more soup kitchens than at other times, there was no appreciable famine in this area during the Depression. People in Dixon, IL (where folks like John Deere and Charles Walgreen were born, and Ronald Reagan grew up), Connersville, IN (where Mary Gray was expanding on Audubon’s original work), and Portsmouth, OH (home of the first NFL runnerup), didn’t go hungry because every native food was produced and sold locally. The rest of the U.S. was less fortunate.

    In a depression, food is King. Transportation is second, because crap doesn’t hit every fan blade evenly, and if one is mobile, it doesn’t matter if their local “fan blade” is buried in it, because they can relocate to a less-crappy “fan blade,” elsewhere. Communication, at least inbound, is third, because one may need to know where the grass is greener (or the blade is cleaner…)

    For jobs, y’all know I favor the “Jack of all trades” approach because one learns how to “fix” and how to make do. As for a career though, look at “essential” vocations: Everybody is born, dies, and eats and suffers various and sundry maladies in-between. Therefore absolutely essential jobs are only found in the medical, funereal and food production sectors of the economy. Semi-essential jobs, like police & fire, and food acquisition, are likely to never suffer appreciable job-loss, either. Other than these, everything we do, everything we have, is a convenience or luxury and can go away in a long-enough, steep enough economic kerfuffle. Salesmen make lots of money, and grow up to become CEOs, but in a sufficiently bad economy, they’ll starve to death.

    I like “dual-use” stuff. This also applies to vocations and avocations. A bicycle is an easy example – It is a means of exercise, and also a means of transportation. An example of a dual-use job would be a millwright, whose skillset would translate without much adjustment, to being either a carpenter or woodworker, or to being a major appliance installer.

  6. George – I can`t believe you are out. I once read, “Trends often go on for far longer than reasonable, but ride it for all it is worth”. This latest uptrend is a prime example of reasonable being exceeded, but that is where the profits are had.

    • hunch/gut – remember the month ends next week…and I can get back in any time…but do notice the arrow on chart #1 this week!

      • Good point. The short sharp down was so close to the up line, I did not see it. Thank you for pointing that out to me. The 1929 chart seems to be working well on the way to the Ure Us Aggregate Index of 30,000.

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