Monday, June 15, 2020

(1232)Sunset industry

Talking about artificial intelligence, I think of how self driving vehicles would make the jobs of drivers obsolete.

There is a father, who is a well-paid accountant, told his 13 year old son that his profession would be progressively taken on by computer programs. If any accountants are needed in his son's generation, it would be few and the nature of the job very different from his. He told his son who is good in science to aim to be an engineer.

Yesterday I found out that Zelda's god daughter was qualifying as an accountant. Now I wonder what the 22 year old young person would face in her next 38 years of employment? This young lady is in her final semester before graduation. Then she would face a much higher hurdle to pass her professional exam.

I remember how I heard that work in the electronic factories in Malaysia would be considered sun-set industry in the 1980s. Yet I know personally a man, who is the husband of my office manager in a private college I taught in, worked in his one job since graduation. He actually retired from that same job in the same department after 4 changes of ownership in 2018.

Of course his university mate moved from quality assurance to banking. Another colleague of the husband mentioned in the above paragraph took a voluntary resignation with compensation and changed line to real estate. Yet the interesting point is that at least one person did stick to and actually finished his working life in a sunset industry. 

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