It could be time to change how we see collar colors

A few weeks ago, a television report detailing a current social phenomenon caught my eye. According to the report, although our nation is facing an economic downturn and many young adults leaving college are finding it difficult to find stable employment, there are many untapped career opportunities out there. It just happens that the collar they would be wearing would not be as white as expected.

While I find it hard to believe that blue-collar jobs are as vastly abundant as the report seemed to portray, it did make a valid point. Jobs in the blue-collar work force are most likely far more accessible and stable during this economic time. The problem, however, does not lie in the jobs themselves, but in the fact that many recent college graduates find it impossible to work at jobs in these fields.

As a college student myself, I can actually agree with this sentiment. I understand that many blue-collar workers may find my viewpoint disrespectful. And honestly, I would agree with that as well. It is extremely ignorant of my generation to think that just because a job is labeled as blue collar that it should be beneath them, but when you look at the current state of our society, it is only natural for us to think this way.

From childhood, the majority of us have been highly encouraged to succeed. Our teachers, our parents and even our peers hold certain expectations of us and we are driven to work hard to meet them. So, many of us work to grab hold of a highly successful career. And as the world we grew up in has taught us, the embodiment of success seems to be the picturesque idea of the modern day successful businessman, entrepreneur or doctor.

Today’s college student takes out thousands of dollars of loans and uses up four, six, up to eight years of their life working to reach these goals. Then, when all is said and done and they find that no one is able to afford to hire them anyone can understand the disheartenment. Then, when on top of that, they are told to take a job that would have required at most two years of technical training, it’s fairly easy to understand their hesitation.

Sadly, this scenario is fairly prevalent today. I have a couple of friends who find themselves in this exact situation. For college students, hearing about these problems makes it hard to rationalize spending so much money and effort to complete their secondary education. But it’s even harder to imagine telling your parents that you are dropping out of college to go work as a plumber.

It’s truly a sad state of affairs. Blue-collar jobs do have many truly wonderful merits, and it a shame they receive the social stereotype they currently hold. Maybe it’s time for a culture shift so that we all can learn that not everyone has to become a world-class CEO to be deemed successful in life.

Jacob McWhorter of Tifton is majoring at mass media communications at Abraham Baldwin College, where he is a writer and editor of The Stallion.