Reply #14: Some Proof [View All]

[Centre_Left]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0871540940/qid=1078147517//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-1667203-6991363?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

In this book, the authors point out that, over the period of 1980-2002, the US experienced a 23.9% population increase as well as burstof corporate downsizing and outsourcing. Nevertheless, the number of employed Americans grew by 37.4%. They concluded that “the creation of new jobs always overwhelms the destruction of old jobs by a huge margin.” They also found that more Americans are employed now, in absolute and proportional terms, than almost any other time in American history.

Most of the new jobs will be created will be in IT, business services, and health-services as more medium-sized businesses struggle to exploit increasingly cheap software to raise their productivity. The Bureau of Labor statistics predicts that the demand for computer support specialists and software engineers will double between 2000 and 2010. The demand for database administrators will increase even more rapidly, a point I personally can attest to since I, as an IT major, I have seen how desperate companies are to find people skilled in developing databases. In fact, I would say having an Oracle certification combined with internship experience guarantees a college graduate a job.

Another reason for my skepticism about people's claims that all decent paying jobs are suddenly going to vanish is because similar claims have been made so many times in the past. Just to point out one example, in the 50s, many manufacturing jobs moved South because of the lure of low wages, prompting displaced workers to argue that the economy in the Northeast would soon collapse.
That scenario has obviously not happened. Moreover, job migration was of enormous benefit to poor people living in the South, particularly my grandfather and father who both avoided poverty by finding relatively high-paying jobs in the new manufacturing sector. Decades later, the same process is now repeating itself in the South as manufacturing jobs head overseas, and Southerners are making the exact same arguments their peers in the North once made. Yet, if history is any guide, their fears are not justified.