LIFE (AND WORK) AFTER 40: An Educational Call to Arms

Julio Casado, New Leaders Council New York City

Why is 25 years of schooling in the beginning of your life expected to provide your bulk of knowledge for 45 years of continuous work? We must consider non-linear and non-continuous learning solutions to cope with the accelerating rate of automation, impacting millions of workers across the entire spectrum of skill levels. To start, we must create distinct learning ecosystems for older adults.

If you’ve watched the news lately, you have probably heard TV anchors say that automation will radically change how we work.

While we suspect that the media, which thrives on controversy, is riling up the problem, in this case, what the media is saying is true.

Automation is and will continue to profoundly change how we work. This radical change, which started with less-skilled workers, is accelerating into more educated, middle skilled professions. Additionally, today’s automation has the ability to impact entire work verticals, leading to unemployment for millions of workers at a time.

Consider the manufacturing industry where employees in labor-intensive, repetitive, low-skilled work are being replaced with more efficient robots. Robots don’t take sick days, vacation time, file workers compensation claims or requires thousands of dollars of health insurance coverage annually. Equally important, the robots can perform this work continuously with minimal maintenance, impacting higher skilled engineering and quality assurance jobs. So, there is a tremendous economic pressure place on manufacturers to replace and reduce the size of their workforce with automation as soon as possible. These changes will impact all workers, from the least to the most educated.

The end-result is a large group of older workers who are unprepared for the this seismic change, unqualified for new jobs and without a learning ecosystem designed to support them through this transition. So, what is the solution to this problem? It is education for older, displaced workers. A distinct, “second college” experience.

Attending college is one of the few, if not only, opportunities where we are expected, encouraged and given the space to intensely pursue knowledge and self-discovery. Yet, it is seen as a space relegated for young adults. Even programs “designed” for older, working adults, are just accommodating their work schedules. These programs don’t create collaborative and experiential spaces for older students to grow and learn with their peers.

If you’re under 30 and are displaced, you have the ecosystem and support networks to learn a new skill and re-enter the workforce. What about if you’re over 40? Where do you go?

In our country’s history, we’ve designed educational solutions to a changing economy and world of work accounting for a slow rate of adoption. The educational solutions were really learning extenders or increasing the number of years young people stayed in school, thus delaying their entry into the workforce. By delaying young people’s entry into the workforce, the economy was able to grow, change, and absorb new workers as older workers retired. We do not have this luxury anymore.

So instead of adding learning extenders for young adults, let’s reintroduce learning later in life, designed for those later in their careers.

If you’re displaced by automation at age 40, your need for skills development is really a need for reinvention. If your identity has revolved around your job or profession, i.e. if you’ve been a truck driver for the better part of two decades, becoming a “coder” isn’t simply learning how to code. It’s forming a new identity.

What better place to reinvent yourself than college, surrounded by your peers going through a similar experience?

That’s how we did it at 18 and how we should do it again at 40.

And it must be free!

Julio Casado has 10 years of experience in talent management and fundraising with a focus on social impact. His experiences include consulting for Fortune 500 companies on workforce development, implementing recruiting and college readiness programs, and consulting founders in for profits and nonprofits. He is currently the Head of Talent Programs for Innoleaps US.

In addition to his role with Innoleaps, he serves as the Chairman of La Unidad Latina Foundation, a scholarship and college access non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the Latino community from high school to college graduation and beyond. His work helps increase educational achievements in traditionally under-resourced communities.

Julio studied Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University and received a Master’s degree in Management from the Harvard University Extension School. He is a 2018 fellow of the New Leaders Council and 2019 fellow of the Startup Leadership Program. Lastly, Julio was born in Dominican Republic, grew up in Harlem, and is proud to call the Bronx home.