Everyone says the answer is better education, but honestly, if every adult in America was educated with a BS, BA, Masters, or PhD, there wouldn'tbeenough jobs for them. Only about 35% of jobs require higher education, according to a government statistic I read a few years ago.
ONLY 35%??? So your attitude is that if I don't bother with higher education, I'm only eliminating my chances of getting 35% of the jobs out there, not to mention the highest paying jobs? The fact is, there aren't enough people to fill all of the jobs in some sectors- a lot of high tech jobs are going overseas because there is an abundance of highly educated folks in China and India without jobs.
Another side of the coin is that the people who earn a Bachelor's, Master's or PHD are the ones who are creating the jobs faster than anyone else. The 'jobs' that you quoted from the government study aren't entitlements from the government or business, or even a static thing, but are things that had to be created because someone had a new idea or product to sell The last 2 companies I worked for were started up by PHD holders, and very likely the next job will be the same. The future is technology and information, if you have neither, you won't have a job for long.