Why fewer and fewer people have a career plan B
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With the cost of living rising, burnout and mass layoffs, the old plan of an alternative career may no longer be viable.
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- Author, Megan Carnegie
- Rolle, BBC Worklife
2 hours ago
Chris is 35 years old and has been in the animation industry for over a decade. He still looks forward to his weekly chores.
Chris loves his job, but financial instability is forcing him to consider other options.
“The industry doesn’t invest in longterm production planning or talent retention,” he explains. “So when production ends, you get fired — no resignation, nothing.”
In the past, he could handle uncertainty. But now he wants to have children and the fluctuations in cash flow are becoming problematic.
For this reason, the California, USAbased animator is considering entering an “alternative career” in user experience design, a fastgrowing market with relatively high salaries. He thinks this is a very safe option.
Many other professionals like Chris have a backup plan for when their careers don’t take off a sort of return to a more stable industry to turn to if their original career isn’t successful.
In some cases, this contingency may be in an area related to your hobbies and interests. Other times, it’s a tolerable range that manages to pay the bills.
Basically, alternative careers is a jobrich and secure sector that is generally resilient, even in the face of severe economic headwinds.
Professionals who accept jobs in volatile or selective industries can feel reassured that they have a “stable” option if their first career choice doesn’t pan out.
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The training costs make it difficult to implement a previously completely realistic career plan B
“A ‘safer’ career plan B addresses people’s need to feel safe and confident about pursuing less traditional careers,” says behavioral scientist Sarah Henson of digital career coaching platform CoachHub.
In fact, having a plan B up your sleeve has mostly been a realistic possibility over the years. But with the high cost of reskilling, industry burnout, and instability in traditionally safe sectors, getting into a preprepared career isn’t as easy, or even as easy as it used to be in the past.
The cost of a new course
There are no “failsafe” careers. However, many professionals consider sticking to a Plan B in sectors like education or commerce, which are more stable.
In Chris’ case, he’s moving into an industry that appears to be growing rapidly and is looking for talent with skills in new technologies.
Alternative careers have a reputation for staying strong for the most part they seem stable or “safe” enough given the changes in the economic landscape.
‘These jobs tend to lack knowledge and therefore offer good job prospects,’ says Professor Fiona Christie of Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK. She specializes in employability and young graduates.
While most of these jobs are truly stable, finding a new career often requires new education or training, which takes time and money. This has always been the case, of course, but the current economic situation makes it more difficult to absorb these additional costs.
“There are significant barriers to retraining, including paying tuition at the same time as basic living expenses and being able to reduce hours for study,” said Catherine Foot, director of Phoenix Insights, a research and debate center run by UK insurer is operated by the Phoenix Group.
“This is exacerbated by the rising cost of living, which is putting more pressure on disposable income,” she explains.
In the UK, 2021 data from careers organization City & Guilds shows that UK citizens looking to make a career change are concerned about the cost of retraining, particularly among 2534 year olds.
These fears are compounded by the fact that many people are saving less money given the current economic instability. For example, data for late 2022 from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in the United States shows that Americans now have only 2.4% of their disposable income to save, down from about 34% at the peak of the pandemic.
Those are concerns for Tiffany, who is 30 and keen to make a career change after a decade in the hospitality industry.
“Even in a reputable, wellpaid bakery, it’s hard for me not to feel guilty about buying shoes or groceries,” she says. “Animation would be my ideal next job, but the big problem is studying I just don’t have the money to support myself.”
Tiffany lives in Minnesota in the United States. For her, taking out a loan seems “scary” because she fears she will never earn enough to pay off the debt and still cover her normal expenses.
For Chris, avoiding education expenses is what defines his career change strategy. He chose User Experience Design because he didn’t need a fulltime degree.
“As I’m in my 30s and about to start a family, I want to avoid going back to school and losing my income as a result,” he says.
Changing careers is difficult for many people, but Christie says it can be particularly difficult for those who don’t have “a financial safety net, such as family savings” or the responsibilities of caring for others.
Also, as wages fall amid the turmoil in the economy, some professionals are taking time off from their current jobs. City & Guilds data shows that over 25% of UK citizens surveyed are concerned about salaries in other jobs. The data shows that people aged 25 to 34 are the most concerned.
One pro who has made this shift is 36yearold Lee.
After working as a freelance music technician for six years, he wanted a more solid, reliable job with a regular schedule and benefits. And to help him, he inherited some money from a relative and invested it in his studies to become a high school teacher.
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In the UK, thousands of teachers and nurses have gone on strike over overwork and underpay.
But despite the unexpected income, the cost of living was an issue in transitioning into the career he hoped would guarantee success.
Lee had to move to a more expensive region of England to be closer to the school where he was studying. As a result, his rent skyrocketed last year.
And since he didn’t have a salary in his first year of teaching, he had to work as a tutor to cover his expenses and is exhausted from coping with it all.
“I always had teaching in mind, but I couldn’t have taken the plunge without the money that was coming in,” he says. “And even now I wonder if I made the right choice. With inflation and all [o dinheiro] it didn’t take as long as I planned.”
New kind of instability
The current professional landscape is also undermining the viability of some of these traditional alternative careers.
“Many industries, even those traditionally considered ‘safe’ options like IT or legal, are also experiencing unemployment and organizational change at an alarming rate,” says Henson.
That’s why professionals are rethinking jobs that were once considered secure, with decent, and sometimes even very high, wages.
The technology sector, for example, has been hit by a significant wave of layoffs that is not over yet.
In 2022, the industry in the US experienced the largest wave of layoffs since the bursting of the “dotcom bubble” in the early 2000s. More technology workers were laid off in 2022 than in 2021 and 2020 combined.
In the UK, for example, thousands of teachers and nurses went on strike over overwork and low wages.
The data suggests that burnout is increasing in these industries. This is a problem that has been exacerbated by the pandemic, crowding out existing professionals rather than encouraging new workers to enter.
A 2022 YouGov Institute survey of teachers aged 34 and under shows that two in five of them would not be teachers today if they could return.
“We can no longer idealize such a Career Plan B, nor believe it’s solid and well underway,” says Christie.
“I wonder if I made the right choice”
Changes like these have increased uncertainty about the future of alternative careers and even the idea of a Career Plan B.
But it’s not all bad news: Advances in education during the pandemic have reduced one of those problems.
“Three years have passed and the demand for digital learning and development tools is still high. “Distance learning has proven to be a convenient way for people to pursue their individual growth at their own pace,” said Henson.
“Distance learning tools not only provide valuable knowledge that is in high demand, but also enable professionals to learn about new jobrelated tasks. That way they make sure they make the right decision before moving on to Plan B in another sector,” he claims.
Tiffany says she took free online graphic design courses to learn the basics and hopes this will help her make progress.
However, it is not possible to train online in all sectors. Some of them require onthejob training or intensive periods of study and testing with hours of work experience (usually a token pay or, like Lee, no pay). All of this makes entering these hitherto safe sectors even more difficult, especially during times of economic downturn.
Lee is still pursuing his new education as a teacher, but plans to work nights and holidays as a messenger to supplement his income as a tutor. He believes that once he starts making money as a qualified teacher, he will feel more financially stable.
“Not long ago, going back to school and becoming a teacher seemed like a tricky but appealing path,” he says. “Now I realize that giving up life and going back to buying books for little money is a pretty risky move at any time.”
“I just hope it’s worth it and I’m happy when I get there.”
For professional certainty, the surnames of Chris, Tiffany, and Lee are omitted.
