The Children of Globalization
Outsourcing Concerns and the Fate of the Next Generation
“I think there’s going to be an enormous shift of occupations. Most jobs are going to change. They’ll survive, but they’ll change.” – Alvin Toffler
It’s a fairly common notion that our children are our future. We raise them, nurture them, and educate them, all with the hope they’ll find a path to success in life. We train our kids to hunt the long-sought American Dream. However, the quest to prepare our children for success in the future is growing more and more complicated in a world of expanding globalization and technology. Do you remember when your parents asked you what you wanted to be when you grow up? How can we do that now with such ease when many of the jobs of the future don’t even exist yet, or will at least undergo drastic changes before the children are old enough to work in them?
Reporter Hannah Clark at Forbes.com jokingly poses this semi-apocalyptic scenario: “It’s 2026. You lost your cashier job five years ago, when Wal-Mart Stores switched to automatic checkout. A job at the post office lasted only a few years, since no one sends mail anymore. Then came the avian flu, decimating populations around the world. Your new office job shut down because everyone was afraid of getting sick. What’s next? Be a quarantine enforcer! These crucial public servants patrol the streets in quarantined neighborhoods, ensuring no one leaves, except in a hearse. With your gas mask and bio-hazard suit, you wait for a signal from blighted households before calling the morgue. No matter how the economy changes, at least one skill will always be in demand: dealing with the dead.” Though proposed in a semi-humorous light, the scene addresses some important issues. Currently, we can walk the aisles of grocery stores, gather our goods, and see the spectacle of machines in the place of humans. That’s right: The Automated Checkout. When I was younger and first discovered these machines, I felt a slight confusion. “What happens to the humans when the machines replace the other cashiers?” I wondered. Did the other humans just go away? (Hint: The answer is no). These people are now out of the job because the machines are much more cost-effective.
Another key concern is the outsourcing of jobs. Before we’re all replaced by machines (which, as Battlestar Galactica fans will note, sounds a little too familiar), we will replaced by other humans willing to work for slightly lower wages… or vastly lower wages in some cases. Many factories have been moved over to China, taking jobs away from the less skilled of the American public and putting them in the hands of the exploited Chinese. Is it right that we should be able to a) exploit another country to make our goods for us and b) do so at the loss of American jobs? Perhaps this is absolutely fantastic for the big-wigs, but we all know how well that worked out in the Great Depression. With the majority of a country poor, there will be a huge call for a solution. In the off chance we get another president like FDR who can enact countless reforms to alleviate the struggle, we will still have many issues to handle. The times have changed from the 1930’s to today. Our economy has evolved and is so integrated into the rest of the world that, unless everybody decides to work together, no reform on American soil will fully save us. Whatever the matter, people are beginning to see outsourcing as an important problem. Even the UN has recognized globalization as a concern.
The outsourcing of technological jobs, however, should be an even greater concern. The two foes of our children’s future employment, technology and outsourcing, are an even greater threat combined. Tim Weber of BBC puts it like this: “Once upon a time the solution seemed to be straightforward. ‘Move up the value chain,’ we were told. Get high-tech skills and let cheap workers in developing countries get their hands dirty. Apart from the fact that his advice never quite worked for many people in manufacturing jobs, it’s also out-of-date. These days engineers in China, India and elsewhere are just as qualified and innovative as those in Silicon Valley or Silicon Glen. Designers in South Korea can be just as hip and cutting edge as those in Turin or Toronto.” Therefore, we have a problem. Even the most education and training here in America will not guarantee our kids a job, because computer-based jobs can be easily shifted down the wire to people who are willing to work for less.
When our children rise up to claim the jobs that haven’t been taken by technology, outsourcing, or technological outsourcing, what’s left? Maybe Hannah Clark wasn’t so far off when she proposed the job of dealing with the dead. The entertainment industry could go either way – people could be so desperate to forget the economic plight that they’ll be greatly invested in entertainment, or will concern themselves only with the essentials and many profitable industries (such as those of music and film) will become obsolete. What other jobs can our children take on? What is left? And how do we prepare them for this great unknown? Fortunately, Hannah Clark has other solutions besides the handling of the deceased. “Technology will create new jobs as well. Out-of-work “top gun” pilots may find jobs captaining dirigibles… Hollywood’s woes may be solved by holography. Since consumers are perfectly happy watching DVDs at home on big flat-screen televisions, box-office receipts have slipped and movie moguls are scrambling. But eventually, Barker says, film companies will start producing three-dimensional holographic movies that require equipment too expensive and complicated to set up at home… Alternative energy will create dozens of new careers in the next two decades. Hydrogen fuel could be cost-competitive with gasoline if refueling stations were mass-produced, according to a study conducted by Ford. The hydrogen at these stations would be produced on-site, so managers would need an entirely different set of skills than those required in today’s gas stations… teleport repairmen could replace auto mechanics… These things are not outside the realm of possibility.”
So, what steps can we take to make sure our children are ready for evolving jobs? We have to learn how to adapt our education system and ourselves to train children to adapt to whatever coming change they might face. If they can master the art of learning and know how to be prepared for the exponential changes that are bound to come, then we can be slightly more at ease when glancing into the uncertain void of the future. Perhaps great things will come, and maybe our panic is only found since we are in a transition stage. As long as we can teach our children to learn and adapt, we can face the future and boldly go where economics and society have never gone before.
Want to learn more? Here are the articles I stole thoughts and quotes from:
• http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/20/jobs-future-work_cx_hc_06work_0523jobs.html
• http://electmikecrane.com/2006/july/globalization.php
• http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/gashc3778.doc.htm
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7214523.stm
Nicely done…