It goes against my natural instincts to readily agree with any government minister of any political persuasion. I’m always looking for that ulterior motive. Yet on this occasion, I agree with one, though probably for the wrong reason.
There was a furore about a government campaign that showed a photograph of a ballet dancer (albeit an American ballet dancer) and advised her to retrain in the cyber industry. Naturally, it was ill-timed and ill-judged. The premise was that as the arts and artists across all media are suffering from Covid restrictions and are unlikely to find work in their chosen field, then they should all re-train as something else. Along with all those hospitality workers, I suspect.
It was ill-timed, because when you are already down on the floor, you do not want a clumsy government boot coming along to kick you in the face. And it was ill-judged because, almost certainly, we don’t have the capacity to re-train 137,000 people, let alone find them all jobs.
However, behind the bonkers ad is a more substantial thought that this and all governments need to address. As people will have to work until they are 70 years old in the near future, in this rapidly changing world we should expect or anticipate that (a) we will not be able to do the same job when we are 70 as we did when we were 30, (b) that it will still exist as a job.
Not that long ago, men would go out to work at 15, do basically the same job or be with the same firm for 50 years and retire at 65. Some professions were able to retire at 60 and the wealthier few at 55. Others never had that opportunity. Take the case of the dancers. How many professional dancers are still performing at the highest level in their 40s. Darcy Bussell quit when she was 38. As the unfit among us will know, your body deteriorates with time, we are not young forever. As Martha Graham said, ‘a dancer dies twice—once when they stop dancing, and this first death is the more painful.’ Dancers aren’t the only ones with curtailed careers. Footballers, gymnasts, rugby players… they all have a premature retirement and must move on to other things. They can’t all become managers, coaches, tv pundits and administrators. They must have a second career.
This happens in other areas too. Service personnel can’t be front line fighters forever. Any actor will tell you, there are precious few decent parts for older women. As the retirement age lengthens other occupations become marginal. Would you expect a 70 year old to still be a steel erector, a roofer, a general labourer, even a nurse or doctor. The longer we expect people to work, the more rapidly, the world changes, the more need there will be for re-training.
So instead of telling those in the arts to think about new jobs, maybe the government should be saying to everyone, ‘we understand, here is the training, here are the opportunities.’
Maybe I have got a bone to pick with that Minister after all.