Jobs of the Future

In The Economist, there is an article called Into the Unknown (November 13, 2004. ) This article also appears in the book Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. The author of Into the Unknown is unverified. In this article, the author talks about how the jobs of the future will come to change. Machines and mechanical devices are taking over the jobs of physical workers and the work force demands are ever changing. “Mechanical devices are already ousting skilled clerical workers and replacing them with operators. Opportunity in the white-collar services is being steadily undetermined. Stuart Chase, an American writer. This quote was published in his book, Men and Machines in 1929. Our concerns about manufacturing jobs heavily relates to the concerns that Stuart Chase had. As more technology is produced more jobs are being lost, although new jobs are being created. This is more prevalent with production technology. This new technology yields lower cost and higher profits. This in turn lifts demand for new goods and services. The facts state that new jobs are being created, but there is always worry about the jobs that are to come in the future.

America has a considerable amount of technology jobs to India in the past few years. On the contrary, the number of technological white-collar jobs in the U. S has risen. This goes to show how when jobs are lost, more often than not new ones are created. The boss of Wipro, Azim Premji, says “IT professionals are in short supply in America, within the next few months, we will have a labor shortage” (177. ) This can further confuse us Americans about lost jobs. Some say that about 14 million Americans (about 11% of the workforce) hold jobs that are at the risk of outsourcing (177. Some of these jobs include paralegals, legal assistants, computer professionals and computer operators. Ashok Bardhan, an economist at the University of California at Berkely, says that some of this work can be done elsewhere now. This may or may not have an effect on jobs and revenue. This of course heavily depends on supply and demand in the market of labor and the effort of the American workers to re train in different fields. Computer professionals have been noticing that certain maintenance jobs are no longer in as much demand in America.

Indian programmers are willing to do this work much more cheaply. This causes companies such as IBM re train their employees in these skills. Many of these jobs face both foreign AND automated competition. As new technology surfaces, it continually causes employees to re train and even sometimes change jobs Although it may seem as if these jobs will be taken, the jobs of the future are ever changing. As jobs are eliminated, new ones emerge and this cycle will continue to happen.