The candidate should have at least two years of experience, proficient in Quickbooks premier accounting system, skillful in Microsoft Office, experienced in using Deltek Costpoint and Unanet Accounting systems in addition to superior communication skills.
Sounds like a position for a senior accounting post, or at least a secured job with higher remuneration. You are so wrong on both accounts, if you think that. The job description on a Craigslist is for a part-time Intermediate Bookkeeper.
These are the kind of skills employers are seeking while hiring in an age of knowledge and automation to cut cost, improve quality and be competitive. No surprise that jobs that would have usually gone to high-school graduates now demand a Bachelor’s degree qualification.
Such job standards are not just benchmarks for new entrants in the job market, they are becoming increasingly inevitable for existing workers to stay employable and adjust to the new economic realities.
Findings of a survey conducted last fall by Pew Research Center survey and released this week show that as much as 63 percent of full- and part-time employees said they upgraded their skills and knowledge in the past 12 months. The survey covered Baltimore, Atlanta and St. Louis metro regions.
Motivations toward learning in a fast-changing economy included need to improve job skills; meet certification or license requirements; get a pay raise; find a new job and secure their position in any downsizing.
Need for acquiring new set of skills partly arose in the aftermath of the Great Recession of the 21st century that saw a general economic decline in the world market around the end of the first decade. The U.S. recession began in 2007 and was related to the financial crisis of 2007 and U.S. subprime mortgage crisis (2007-09).
The conditions forced many to evaluate their ability amid changing economic realities and learn new skills to improve their worth. More than half of the respondents (55%) pursued job-related training to maintain or improve job skills, while 37 percent did so to acquire certifications or licenses needed for the job. Twenty-four percent acquired new skills to get a pay raise or promotion while 7 percent were forced to do so by job insecurity.
While new realities have become stressful, many derive self-satisfaction by expanding their knowledge and skills, challenge themselves and get out of their comfort zones, prove a better colleague, strengthen their ability to adapt to new situations and prove other wrong.
Automation remains a single most challenge for the existing workforce. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when there are ads for all the things computers can do that used to require people [to perform],” a Baltimore-based Baby Boomer skilled worker told the survey.
Many Baby Boomers, a huge generation born between 1945-1964, are also restraining workforce growth as they are working until older ages than the generation that came before them. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the proportion of men between ages 62 and 64 who are working or looking for work increased from 45 percent in 1994 to 56 percent in 2014.
Challenges just do not come from new technology and automation but also from globalization, as people know jobs can be outsourced abroad. Several Republican presidential candidates have been able to exploit the years of wage stagnation and a steady outflow of manufacturing jobs during their campaign trail.
While the new job data for February added 242,000 jobs from growth in restaurants, retail and healthcare, keeping the unemployment rate steady at 4.9%, decline in wages remained a downside. Average Americans’ wages declined 0.1 percent from the prior month.
There are six million persons employed as part-time workers, a figure that has remained unchanged since November. These are workers who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back, or because they were unable to find a full-time job, according to the February job statistics.
Many economists say the Obama administration’s health care reform has increased part-time employment. Under the law, companies with more than 100 employees are required to provide health insurance to those working more than 30 hours.
