There’s been a problem slowly developing over the past few years, that in my estimation, is about to reach crisis-level: there aren’t enough coffee jobs.

Most fast-food employees see their jobs as a temporary gig. Until a few years ago, a Venn diagram of employment opportunities would have placed coffee-shop barista closer to a McDonalds cashier than not. As specialty coffee has been working to pull itself up out of the fast-food zone, we’ve attracted more ambitious, more engaged, more in-it-for-the-long-term people who are genuinely interested becoming career coffee professionals. While we often hear about how green coffee supply and climate change threaten our industry, the impending over-abundance on the supply-side of the specialty coffee professional workforce is becoming a significant force that will require resolution, one way or another.

The more interesting specialty coffee becomes, the more attractive it is, and the more people are and will be engaged in this industry as a career. But what will they do? Assuming that the widest entry-point to a career in specialty coffee is as a barista, what are the advancement options for Jane or John Q. Barista?

Often, you’ll see people transition to a retail management role. But let’s be honest: while this is an advancement in responsibilities, this is not really advancement in a coffee career. Same could be said for production (bagging, packing, and shipping), sales and marketing, or for any number of office-type jobs. If we’re being brutally honest, you’d have to put the idea of starting your own coffee company in the “not really a coffee-job” category as well.

So maybe they could become a barista trainer. That’s definitely a great option, and there’s perhaps no better way to learn than to teach. But where does that lead? What next?

If you’re in a shop that doesn’t roast, that is the end of the road for you with that particular company. If you’re in, or can transition to, a shop that also roasts coffee, then becoming a roaster is a possibility. But when you do the math, the ratio of baristas to roasters within a particular supply chain, depending on the capacity of roasting operation, will be something between 5:1 to 1000:1. As you move up the career ladder, the available positions shrink in number dramatically. To make matters worse, the lack of mobility means that there’s low probability that someone would vacate those coveted positions in order for someone else to move into it at all.

Getting back to getting a lay of the land, some companies will have some sort of quality control jobs, involving frequent cupping and evaluation. But you’re probably talking about fewer than 100 coffee companies in the U.S. that would have a full-time quality-control position. There’s the coveted title of “green coffee buyer,” but you’re again talking about a rarefied air.

Okay. So what are the potential solutions?

There are really only three possibilities, only two of which are actually solutions: accept the status quo, increase the number of advancement opportunities industry-wide, or recalibrate the existing job opportunities to be themselves more long-term.

The status quo is, in a word, unacceptable. We cannot allow the idea of a coffee career to be, effectively, a bill of goods—a promise of something that doesn’t really exist. We as an industry need to either fix this situation, or stop collectively lying to our workforce that there is a viable career to be found in specialty coffee.

We could change the existing jobs in specialty coffee to be more long-term propositions. But reading reports from full-time baristas eliminates that most numerous position, only exacerbating the problem as paying-your-dues in coffee also reduces your efficacy and ongoing prospects in that position. Even then, you’ve got the challenge of paying meaningful wages for those entry-level positions.

The best way to alleviate the demand-supply imbalance is to increase the number of job opportunities. But that begs its own question of how to accomplish that.

Increase the number of specialty coffee companies. Invest in higher-level employment to bolster the quality of products and services, which in turn can increase revenues. Invest in coffee education, both in partaking in the education and in providing it. Charge more for coffee to increase the resources available for such positions. Commit to achieve higher quality in all products and practices.

Perhaps most importantly, deliver on the promise that specialty coffee makes to the people who purchase and consume the beverages and beans we produce. While the legion of aspiring coffee professionals at the entry point is indeed a large and growing issue, greater still is the sustainability of the third-wave specialty coffee paradigm to our consumer base. While we’ve made some significant improvements over the second-wave stalwarts, an elevated message requires a product and service experience to match, and we’re daily failing as much as we’re succeeding.

As always, I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.