Key Takeaways
- Fresno City College students told KSEE/KGPE that AI is one more worry as they choose careers in a tough job market.
- The State Center Community College District's labor researcher counts more than 73,000 open jobs in career technical education fields.
- Healthcare, business, transportation and technology have the highest workforce demand, but many students lack the skills for those jobs.
- Fresno City College staff say many students can't say what job their major leads to.
"That's honestly a big scare is the AI, and it's just in the art and writing, it's just taking over so much," Phoenix Carmem, a Fresno City College student, told KSEE/KGPE as graduation season arrived this year.
Carmem isn't alone. Students finishing at Fresno City College are heading into a job market they describe as rough, and AI has become one more thing to worry about as they pick a career path. The State Center Community College District's own labor researcher says the jobs are there, especially in career technical education, but the students and the openings aren't finding each other.
Second time through
Some of these students are on their second try. Alley Gonzalez graduated from Fresno State but didn't want to teach. So she enrolled at Fresno City College and earned a paralegal degree.
She isn't panicking.
"I'm not like so afraid that I'm never going to get a job, even with like AI or with like how bad the job market is," Gonzalez told the station. "Because it's like eventually I'll find something."
What the district's numbers show
Patricia Salinas works with the Center for Labor Market Research at the State Center Community College District, which runs Fresno City College. The jobs aren't the problem, she said.
"We have over 73,000 jobs currently in our CTE areas, career technical education are currently open and available for students," she told the station.
The highest demand, according to Salinas, is in healthcare, business, transportation and technology. The gap she describes sits on the student side: many don't know what the local labor market looks like, and they don't have the skills those openings call for. Her center sends labor market data back to the district's colleges so programs keep pace.
"We provide labor market data for our colleges so that they are providing the best up-to-date programs that are relevant for our students," Salinas said.
The question counselors ask first
Counselors at the college say they're trying to get kids to think past the major to the job attached to it. Martin Herb, an office specialist at FCC, starts with the same two questions.
"My first questions usually to them is what their major is. Once they answer that, I ask them, 'Well, what do they plan on doing with that?'" Herb said.
A lot of students don't have an answer, according to Herb. They're focused on getting through college and not on what comes next.
Salinas put it bluntly.
"It's not a guessing game anymore," she said. "It's not 'I'm going to automatically have a job when I'm done. It's where are the jobs?'"
Central Valley AI is produced by the CVAI Education Desk team and developed by Kaweah Tech, a regional firm that builds, deploys, and integrates AI solutions for businesses across California's Central Valley.
Source
https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/education/ai-fears-fresno-students/