7 jobs that are quickly disappearing in the US

7 jobs that are quickly disappearing in the US7 jobs that are quickly disappearing in the USTime and time again we find ourselves talking about the future of work. The new horizons of the job market,AI, robots, andfuturistic offices. But what about those jobs that fall by the wayside and get left behind in the wake of progress?The Bureau of Labor Statisticshas been updating its list of jobs that are disappearing for a while now, and they update the list regularly to give job seekers a look at how certain industries are doing. Industries in the US, like coal and steel, are hiring less and less and other careers, such as data entry keyers, postmasters, and legal secretaries, are disappearing as well thanks to increased automation and other technology. Heres a list of 7 jobs that are disappearing the fastest in the US.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreLegal secretariesLegal secretari es assist with legal research, perform a number of secretarial duties and prepare legal papers and correspondence, such as summonses, complaints, motions, and subpoenas. With law school graduates struggling to find work because of an oversupply of attorneys, becoming a legal secretary has become a popular choice. But legal assistants who support lawyers are finding less need for their services thanks to AI, automation and other technology. A recent report from consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers revealed that law firms are using software to read and review contracts, and a free chatbot lawyer called DoNotPay is even helping drivers in both New York and London to beat parking tickets. Its no wonder then, that the BLS predicts that there will be 19% less legal secretaries by 2026.They call Legal Secretaries Practice Assistants which sounds a bit like a downgrade. But there are opportunities for monetary award and recognition for doing a good job. anonymous employer review atMcGuire woods LLPPostmasters and mail superintendentsPostmasters are responsible for handling our mail. They prepare everything that comes in and goes out, they examine, sort, and route mail as well as load, operate, and occasionally adjust and repair mail processing, sorting, and canceling machinery and generally make sure that everything within the postal service works smoothly. But when was the last time you got a letter? With so many of us opting to pay our bills ansprechbar these days and with the rise of emails and WhatsApp, its no wonder the postmaster job is disappearing. Add to that the combination of automated sorting systems, cluster mailboxes and tight budgets that are coming into the postal service and its easy to see why the BLS predicts that there will be 20.9% less postmasters by 2026.When I started working for the post office in 1979, I loved my jobin the last 10 years things have changed drastically. anonymous employer review at theU.S. Postal ServiceCoil winders, tapers, and finishersCoil winders, tapers and finishers assist in the production of electric and electronic products by winding the wire coils of electrical components like resistors, transformers, generators, and electric motors. By 2026, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts that there will 20.7% fewer coil winders, tapers and finishers due to improved processes, tools, and increased automation. Its not just coil winders, tapers and finishers whose jobs are declining, its other electromechanical equipment assemblers too. They are expected to decrease by nearly 10,000, thats a 21% decrease. That being said, the states with thehighest level of employmentwithin the field are Texas, California, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Minnesota.Supervisors are helpful and very friendly, great group of experienced employees. anonymous employer review atRed Spot Paint VarnishData Entry keyersData Entry keyers input information into electronic or digital system using a keyboard or photo composing perfo rator, they also verify data and prepare materials for printing. Due to the nature of their job, many employers are looking to outsource data entry jobs, automate them, or reassign to more experienced employees, meaning less and less workers will be needed in this field. According to the BLS, there will be a 21.2% reduction in Data Entry keyers in the next 7 years.Looking for a job as a Data Entry Keyer?Lionbridgeis rated as a good company among Data SpecialistsParking-enforcement workersWe all know the dreaded parking enforcement workers. They patrol an assigned parking lot or city street, seemingly itching to issue tickets or citations to cars parked illegally or those that have overstayed their time limit. You might be happy to hear that the BLS predicts that there will be 35.3% less parking enforcement workers on the streets by 2026, but that doesnt mean drivers are going to escape with fewer tickets, unfortunately. With technology like automatic license plate recognition, virtu al permits and gateless parking, filling the gap, its unlikely that there will be any let-up with regards to parking tickets.Parking enforcement officers and tow truck operators make the agency work. anonymous employer review atPhiladelphia Parking AuthorityRespiratory therapy techniciansRespiratory therapy technicians look after patients with breathing problems such as emphysema and asthma and conduct diagnostic testing. They measure lung capacity and analyze blood samples using a blood gas analyzer and consult with physicians to develop and implement a treatment plan for the patient. They also perform physiotherapy and other treatments and teach patients to use medications. According to the BLS, though, they come second on the list of disappearing jobs. The number of respiratory therapy technicians has been dropping since 2004 and has decreased by 43.90% since then. The BLS expects that this will continue to happen and that there will be a 56% decline by 2026, this is also due to new technology, cuts and reallocation of the duties associated with this job to other employees.My experience as a field respiratory therapist is a good one. Never had any major issues. anonymous employer review atAdvanced Pharmacy ServicesLocomotive firersAt the top of the list, is the locomotive firer job. In 2016, there were only 1,200 locomotive firers nationwide and this is expected to fall to just 300, a decline of 78.6% by 2026, according to the BLS. Locomotive firer might sound old-fashioned but this job basically involves monitoring locomotive instruments, watching for dragging equipment, obstacles on rights-of-way, and train signals during runs, and relaying besucherzahlen signals from yard workers to yard engineers in railroad yards. These are all tasks that are either becoming automated or being handed over to engineers, so this job is likely to become non-existent quite quickly.Job grants you a lot of independence, but takes a lot of your time. anonymous employer review atBurlington Northern Santa Fe CorporationThis article originally appeared on Kununu..bxc.bx-campaign-1012255 .bx-group-1012255-lyDBLV9 width 900pxheight 550px

5 Reasons to Work with a Career Coach

5 Reasons to Work with a Career Coach5 Reasons to Work with a Career CoachLooking to make a big change in your career? Not sure where youre headed next? Feeling confused or stuck at work? A career coachat ResumeSpice can help with all of these issues and so many others. But if youre like many professionals out there, you might not fully understand how one can benefit you. Here are just a few areas in which a career coach can provide guidance and supportDefine your career path.Are you looking for mora than just a job, but a career that takes into account your goals, lifestyle, and passions? A coach can help you find the right path, whether youre just starting out or youre in the middle of your career and want to make a big change. Through the process, they will get to know your personality, aspirations, skills, experience, and what youre looking for out of your work and your life. They can then effectively advise you on potential opportunities and how to take advantage of them.Learn a bout your strengths.Most people have a hard time assessing their strengths and weaknesses objectively. Thats where a career coach can help. They can learn about your background and capabilities, all to assess your value as a potential employee. At the same time, they can give you some insight into the strengths you should be focusing on during your job search and how to best promote them during the hiring process.Build more confidence.A career coach can help you build confidence in a variety of ways, including by enabling you toUnderstand your strengths and talentsOvercome negative beliefs about yourselfHone in on any weaknesses or insecurities you have in your careerCreate a healthier, more realistic frame of mind that empowers youAs a result, youll feel more confident in your career, whether your next step is to ask for the promotion, start sending out resumes or make a major transition to a new field.Make tough choices. There are times in everyones career when theyre going to hav e to make tough choices. And sometimes family and friends arent the right options for offering the advice and guidance you need.A career coach, on the other hand, can help in these situations, always keeping your best interest in mind. For instance, theyre trained to ask clarifying questions, so you can make the right decision going forward. Theyll make sure youre evaluating all your options, assessing whether its the right time to make a move, and ensuring theres a plan B in place.Stay on track.Managing your career, making critical decisions about it, and putting a plan into action requires a lot of work. Having someone to measure your progredienz and hold you accountable will help to ensure all your effort pays off.When you work with a career coach, they can collaborate with you to develop a plan that enables you to achieve your career goals, keep you motivated on the journey, and monitor your progress along the way. This means youre more likely to achieve your objectives and less likely to stray down an easier, but less satisfying path.Interested in learning more about how you can benefit from a career coach?Call the career coaches at ResumeSpice at 832.930.7378. Whether your goal is to launch a new career or move up with your existing employer, we can give you the insight you need to achieve your goals.

Rekindling the Spark

Rekindling the Spark Rekindling the Spark Rekindling the SparkGo by the headlines, and the future binnenseems bleak for the internal combustion engine, the trusty workhorse of modern mobility. This past year has seen announcements from several major countriesFrance, Germany, Great Britain, and Indiastating their intention to ban fossil-fuel powered automobiles entirely.To a certain extent, those announcements can be dismissed as aspirational, as the goals are set for 2040, far beyond the life expectancy of cars on the road today. Still, Norway, an oil-exporting nation that is a leader in electric vehicles, has a deadline of 2025 for the end of emissions-producing vehicles.In September, Chinawhere about 40 percent of all cars in the world are soldweighed in. In a step forward from previous efforts, which focused on pushing auto firms to produce more electric vehicles while putting strict limits on car registration in crowded and heavily polluted Beijing and Shanghai, Chinas vice minis ter of industry and information technology said the government is working with other regulators on a timetable to end production and sales of combustion-powered cars.Even in the United States, which has shown no appetite for sweeping action at the federal level, eight states have set goals for electric-powered vehicles and aggressive emissions and mileage standards have promoted the development of cleaner and more efficient cars. In many cases that means cars with hybrid gas-electric power trains rather than all-electric battery-powered vehicles. But Tesla Motors, the manufacturer of electric cars, has a market capitalization of $61 billion, more than such established automakers as Ford, Honda, and General Motors.While governments and financial markets may be in love with battery-powered electric vehicles, dont count out the internal combustion engine just yet. Continuing refinements are making the ICE smaller, stronger, and less polluting. The technology is not yet ready to lose it s place in powering cars and trucks.From a marketing standpoint, electrification and battery-powered engines are the absolute darling, said Brett Smith, assistant director of manufacturing, engineering, and technology at the industry-backed Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. The reality is that it is a long-term trend that may take decades to get here. And because of the pressures of regulation, there has been an incredible amount of refinement to gas engines.For many nonspecialists, the case for electric vehicles is straightforward Its all about carbon dioxide and other emissions. But the advantage EVs hold at the tailpipe is not as strong as laypeople believe. For one, it does not take into account emissions from power plants that provide the electricity for EVs. In some regions that depends on coal power for electric generation, a conventional car that gets as little as 40 mpg will produce fewer emissions than an EV. Also, the environmental damage along the supply chain for lithium-ion batteries can be significant. A 2016 study by Arthur D. Little, the international consulting firm, comparing battery electric vehicles against internal combustion engine vehicles stated, The ultimate environmental and economic reality of electric vehicles is far more complicated than their promise.The study showed BEVs enjoy economic advantages. The electricity cost associated with operating BEVs over a distance of one mile is significantly lower than the cost of gasoline over the same distance for a conventional car. The cost to maintain a BEV also is less, and battery technology has evolved to where the price per kilowatt hour of lithium-ion battery packs has dropped from $1,126 in 2010 to only $300 in 2015, according to the report.But other economic factors intervene. Without exception, BEVs in 2015 were significantly more expensive to manufacture than internal combustion engine vehicles, mostly because of battery manufacturing, and were much more expensive at the dealer.The report shows that most of the environmental impacts generated by ICEVs are localized to the combustion of gasoline in the engine, but the BEV manufacturing process generates a much more widely dispersed and damaging set of environmental impacts. Those effects include the use of heavy metals in the manufacture of lithium-ion battery packs combined with pollution generated by the U.S. power grid when charging. Battery production relies on metals such as kobalt and materials like graphite, sourced from poorly regulated and heavily polluting mines in China and Africa.Given the divergence in where environmental impacts are allocated, it is safe to say that a consumer who chooses to drive a BEV over an ICEV shifts the environmental impact of ownership, according to the report. In other words, BEVs reduce local contributions to greenhouse gas emissions but they produce a different set of environmental challenges across the globe, the consequences of which are largely bor ne by rural and often disadvantaged communities as well.Even with the drop in the cost of battery packs, the total cost of owning an EV in 2025 will still be between $6,000 and $11,000 higher than owning a conventional car, the A.D. Little report concludes.According to John Dec, a researcher at the Sandia National Laboratories Combustion Research Facility in Livermore, Calif., the wertzuwachs of internal combustion engines will improve over the coming decade. Advances in friction, motor oil, and fuel will mean battery-electric powertrains will have to improve more than anticipated to catch up with the performance of internal combustion engines.EVs are coming and they will grow, Dec said. But its way, way premature to say the internal combustion engine is dead.Combustion ControlWhat sort of improvements are in store for the internal combustion engine? One recent example of innovation is direct fuel injection.Direct injection sends highly pressurized gasoline into the combustion chamb er of each engine cylinder, promising greater fuel economy and lower emissions. Many manufacturers worked on the ordnungsprinzip over the second half of the 20th century, but in 2004 Isuzu became the first company to offer the system in a mainstream vehicle in the U.S. market. By 2007, Detroit entered the competition as Ford introduced its EcoBoost line of engines and General Motors its V6 LLT SIDI for Cadillac.Theres a lot thats been happening since 07, Smith said. The industry is really good at refining something.By some estimates, about half of models sold in the U.S. this year feature direct injection.The technology just continues to improve along with our ability to control and manipulate the combustion process, agreed Robert M. Wagner, director at the National Transportation Research Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.The next step in control of the combustion process may be Mazdas SkyActiv-X engine, a homogenous charge compression ignition engine that resear chers and manufacturers have been working to fine-tune for years. An HCCI engine uses gasoline in what is basically a selbstznder engine supplemented by spark plugs.Spark-ignition engines are ubiquitous. A fuel injector sprays a mist of gasoline into the cylinder as the piston compresses air to one-tenth of the original volume. The spark plug ignites the fuel mix, driving down the piston to produce power.Diesel engines have a compression ratio of about 201, providing more stored energy, and diesel fuel is ignited at higher temperatures provided by that higher compression. An HCCI engine tries to combine the high compression of a diesel engine with faster-burning gasoline to provide more power.The challenge with HCCI has always been to control when ignition actually happens, said Shawn Midlam-Mohler, an associate professor of practice at Ohio State Universitys Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department in Columbus.Mazda says it has solved that harte nuss. The companys SkyActiv-X engine will use a spark plug in each cylinder to jump-start the process and control combustion, mostly during startup when the engine is cold. It is not unlike conventional glow plugs used in starting cold diesel engines. Mazda calls it spark-controlled compression ignition.The company claims its engine is 10 to 20 percent more efficient than its current models.We think it is an imperative and fundamental job for us to pursue the ideal internal combustion engine, Mazda RD head Kiyoshi Fujiwara said in announcing the new engine, which will be installed in 2019 vehicles. Electrification is necessary, but the internal combustion engine should come first.Nissan is introducing another technology that has been percolating on the research burners, the variable compression engine with a turbocharger.Varying the engines compression ratio is a long-time goal of auto makers and Nissans engine is the result of some two decades of research and more than 300 patents. Nissan says the VCT can be d ynamically varied from 81 for high performance up to 141 for efficiency.The VC-T 2.0 liter, four-cylinder engine will initially be offered on the 2018 Infiniti QX 50 crossover, but is expected to be added throughout its lineup. The engine promises a 27 percent gain in fuel economy over the companys 3.5 liter V-6 engine. According to Nissan, The sophisticated engine control logic automatically applies the optimum ratio, depending on what the driving situation demands.The key to the engine is a multi-link piston rod. Compound connecting rods are fitted into the crankcase and offer computer control over the ratio of each piston. Manufacturers have experimented with compound rods but durability issues have until now prevented their use.The company claims it can move between the levels of compression ratios in 1.5 seconds.The engine also runs on the Atkinson cycle at times, which is a great companion for a hybrid system.Its not hard to implement, said Paul Miles, manager of the engine co mbustion department at Sandias Combustion Research Center.The Atkinson cycle has been around since the 19th Century, but its use in auto engines has been limited. While fuel efficient, it doesnt provide enough power for the acceleration needed for passing.That problem can be solved by including an Atkinson engine in a hybrid-electric drivetrain. While the Atkinson provides the power for standard cruising speed, the electric motor can pick up the slack when more power is needed.Toyota took a different tack when it introduced a new engine in its 2016 Tacoma pickup truck. Rather than adding an electric boost when more power is required, Toyota changes the cycle of the engine itself as needed. The engine runs on a conventional Otto cycle engine to provide the muscle for towing, but when full power isnt required, such as when the truck maintains constant speed, the valve timing changes to the Atkinson cycle to save fuel. The switch is seamless and undetectable by the driver.The engine al so includes two methods of fuel delivery into the engine, direct injection and port injection, and uses one or both as needed for each level of power requirement.The engine is a hybrid, but an Otto-Atkinson-cycle hybrid, rather than a gas-electric one.The Toyota engine is unique, Miles said. Its designed for a hybrid, and is 15 percent better than a typical engine today.You can do a lot of these things now because of greater computer processing power, Smith noted, adding that the ability to better machine parts and control engine combustion has been key to ICE improvements. You can understand what is happening in the cylinder and adjust on the fly. It gives you a strong understanding of what you can and cannot do.Boosting PowerAutomakers have introduced other tricks in recent years. Transmissions now feature eight to 10 speeds that keep engine operations at high efficiency, and electronic starters can seamlessly shut the engine off for brief periods when stopped instead of idling, s tarting the engine up again when the driver removes the brakes.One popular advance involves turbochargers and superchargers that can boost four-cylinder engines to provide power like a larger engine while delivering the fuel economy of a smaller one. But researchers believe this ability to compensate for downsized engines through turbocharging may have hit its limits.The trend to downsize may continue but I dont think you can get too much smaller, Miles said.Some groups are looking to improve the performance of small engines by changing the electrical system of the entire car.Traditionally, most cars have operated on a 12V electrical system that handles cooling, lighting, and information and entertainment systems. On some high-end cars and SUVs, however, this 12V system is supplemented by a more robust 48V one capable of powering not just electronics and AC, but also start-stop motors and turbochargers. It allows smaller engines to be used for better fuel economy wihtout hampering p erformance.For instance, four-cylinder engines boosted by a turbocharger now give the performance of a standard V-6 engine. Still, there is some lag where the turbo speeds up RPM when a driver presses the accelerator to pass or needs a burst of speed. An electric turbocharger running off a 48V electric system will reduce that lag.The next logical step is 48-volt technology, Smith said.Combining a four-cylinder turbocharged engine with a 48V system effectively produces a mild hybrid powertrain that increases fuel efficiency by 15 to 20 percentat about one-third the cost of a traditional hybrid.Youre going to see it in luxury cars, Smith added. Volvo is clearly at that point. Volvo, owned by Chinas Geely Holding Group, announced it is moving to electric and hybrid vehicles and will no longer produce gasoline-only cars after 2019.In the U.S., Smith continued, it will be interesting. SUVs would be interesting. In smaller cars, it probably does not make a lot of sense, except for maybe e mission standards coming in 2023. The consumer just wont pay.That price differentialand the American consumers unwillingness to pay itmay keep internal combustion engines on the road in the U.S. long after they have disappeared from showrooms around the world. Aside from niche applications and luxury vehicles such as Tesla Motors offerings, battery electric vehicles just wont be able to compete with the internal combustion engine, alone or in gas-electric powertrains.I think the vast majority of the fleet will be using the internal combustion engine with new electric technology, Dec predicted. It should co-exist for at least three more decades. MEReadthe latest issue of theMechanical Engineering Magazine. Download the Full ArticleI think the vast majority of the fleet will be using the internal combustion engine. John Dec, Sandia National Laboratory