Your #Career : 10 Middle Class Jobs That Will Be Gone Soon…Unemployment May have Returned to Pre-Recession Levels, But the Middle Class Jobs Americans Used to Rely On to Get by are Nowhere to Be Found.

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A significant number of new jobs added since the 2008 economic meltdown are in low-paying industries like food service and home health care, a recent Wall Street Journal analysis found. At the same time, many traditional middle-class jobs, like those in construction and manufacturing, have vanished

business woman with her staff, people group in background at modern bright office indoors

The news isn’t all bad. The U.S. economy has also added well-paying jobs in information services, management and consulting, and software development, the WSJ’s research found. But there’s no doubt that many of the jobs that once provided a secure middle-class income to millions of Americans no longer exist. Some – especially government jobs – have vanished due to budget cuts, while others have been shifted offshore or eliminated when technology made workers obsolete. And the worst isn’t over yet, at least in some industries.

Though the job market is expected to grow by about 7% between 2014 and 2024, according to data from theBureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the growth won’t be shared equally across all industries. While certain fields, such as nursing and accounting, are looking at double-digit job growth, others are expected to shrink dramatically. The endangered jobs include many that pay enough to push someone into the middle class. (A family of four needed a household income of at least $48,000 to qualify as middle income in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center.)

Here are 10 middle-class jobs that are quickly disappearing.

10. Bank tellers

Expected employment decline: 8%

When was the last time you waited in line to talk to a teller at your bank? ATMs and online banking have eliminated many of the functions bank tellers used to perform. While there will still be an estimated 480,500 people working as tellers in 2024, it’s significantly fewer than the 520,500 people currently working in this field.

Declining employment is another blow to bank tellers, whose jobs no longer offer a reliable middle-class income. About 30% of tellers rely on public assistance to supplement their wages, a 2014 study found, and some have called them the “fast food workers of Wall Street.”

 

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9. Home economics teachers

Expected employment decline: 12%

As recently as 2002, about 5.5 million high school students were enrolled in a home economics course (or “family and consumer science,” as it’s now officially known). By 2012, that number had fallen to just 3.5 million. The number of jobs for people willing to teach young people about cooking, budgeting, and other life skills is expected to continue to shrink. Today, there are 4,300 home economics teachers. By 2024, there will be 3,800.

 

8. Travel agents

Expected employment decline: 12%

Now that you can book a flight, hotel, and activities online in a matter of minutes, fewer Americans feel the need to call a travel agent when planning a vacation. The industry has already shrunk considerably, from 34,000 retail travel locations in the 1990s to 13,000 by 2013, according to CNN, and more contraction is on the horizon. The number of travel agents is expected to drop to 65,400 in 2024, down from 74,100 in 2014. Travel agents who work with luxury and corporate travelers or who specialize in booking specialty trips will likely still have a niche, though.

 

7. Printing workers

Expected employment decline: 14%

As people shun paper in favor of digital options, jobs in the printing industry have declined. In Illinois alone, a center of the printing industry, the number of jobs fell by 45% between 2001 and 2013, according to the Chicago Tribune. Jobs in the printing industry will continue to vanish, falling by 14% by 2024. Prepress technicians will be especially hard hit, with the number of jobs in this field falling from 36,500 to 27,500, a drop of 25%.

 

6. Parking enforcement workers

Expected employment decline: 21%

Parking enforcement workers earn an average salary of $36,530 for patrolling city streets and issuing tickets to illegally parked cars. In 2014, about 9,400 people worked in parking enforcement. By 2024, their ranks will shrink by 2,000, to 7,400. In times of tight budgets, many cities, like Chicago and San Francisco have laid off parking workers and shifted their responsibilities onto other workers.

 

5. Manufacturing jobs

Expected employment decline: About 20-25%, depending on specific job

Manufacturing jobs once provided a path to the middle class for many American workers. But these jobs are disappearing. The BLS provides data for a variety of different manufacturing and factory jobs, and the outlook is bleak for nearly all of them. The number of forging machine setters, operators, and tenders will shrink by 21% by 2024. Cutting machine jobs will decline by about 21% as well. Jobs for model makers and pattern makers will fall by 22%.

Not all manufacturing jobs are vanishing, though. In the next decade, companies will need to hire more people for highly skilled manufacturing jobs, including those who can operate and program computer-controlled machines. The number of jobs in this area will grow by 18%, to 204,700.

 

4. Watch repairers

Cell phones have replaced watches for many people, which means less demand for watch repair. Jobs in this highly specialized industry are already scarce – there are just 2,700 watch repairers in the U.S., according to the BLS. By 2024, there will be only 2,000, a drop of 26%. Trained horologists will still be needed to fix expensivedesigner watches, so this field, while shrinking, isn’t quite dead yet

 

3. Postal service workers

Expected employment decline: 28%

Landing a job for the U.S. Postal Service was once a route to the middle class for many Americans, but no more. The number of people working as letter sorters, mail sorters, and clerks has plummeted from 797,795 in 1999 to 491,863 in 2015. Employment at the USPS is expect to drop another 28% by 2024, to a little less than 350,000, about the number of employees the postal service had in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

 

2. Telephone and switchboard operators

Expected employment decline: 42%

Pre-Google and Siri, locating a telephone number often meant dialing 0 or 411. Now, telephone operators, who also help disabled callers and assist with emergency calls when you can’t reach 911, are a dying breed. In 2014, there were about 13,100 telephone operators, but by 2025, there will only be about 7,500, a drop of 42%.

Switchboard operators, who help relay calls in offices, hospitals, and other settings, are also disappearing. About 37,000 jobs in this field will vanish by 2024, a drop of 33%. The average switchboard operator makes $26,440 per year.

 

1. Locomotive firers

Expected employment decline: 70%

Locomotive firers – sometimes called assistant engineers — monitor equipment, watch for train signals, and look out for obstacles on the tracks. Back when freight trains ran with five-person crews, the job was more common, but as railroad companies have scaled back to two- or three-person crews, locomotive firer jobs have all but disappeared. In 2014, only 1,700 people were still working as locomotive firers, and their numbers are expected to fall to 500 by 2024.

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CheatSheet.com |  June 23, 2016 | Megan Elliot