J.Treacy writes: > Teaching people to think about what is coming at them and how to > develop some discrimination skills is going to be more in demand > from educators that listings of easily assembled facts. > [EMAIL PROTECTED] COPYRIGHTED > > > The Nov 95 issue of the Monthly Labor Review carries the latest BLS > > projections for job growth. The ten most rapidly growing occupations, in > > numerical terms, between 1994 and 2005 are projected to be: > > > > * cashiers > > * janitors & cleaners > > * retail salespersons > > * waiters and watresses > > * registered nurses > > * general managers and top executives > > * systems analysts > > * home health aides > > * guards > > * nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants > > > > The only "high tech" job in the top 10 is systems analysts, projected to > > grow from 483,000 in 1994 to 928,000 in 2005. The only other high-end job > > is "general managers and top execs," slated to grow from 3,046,000 to > > 3,512,000. RNs are, of course, skilled workers, but the rest of the list > > features some of the cliches of postindustrial shitwork. Bob Reich seems > > not to read the projections of an agency he supervises. > > Doug It strikes me the ten categories can be rearranged under the following headings. Guard labour guards cashiers retail sales Managing machinery systems analysts Caring professions nurses nursing aids, etc home health aids janitors and cleaners Combination guard and carer waiters and waitresses Combination guard and machine manager general managers and top execs The proliferation of guards suggests an increasingly unequal division of income and the proliferation of carers suggests the solution might lie partially (aside from abolishing wage labour) in raising the income and prestige of the carers. It turns out that this kind of labour is the kind which is truly too complex to be done by machine. Terry McDonough
