[CLUE-Talk] Interesting Article

[Jeff Cann]

On Thursday 18 September 2003 12:09 am, Alastair Mayer wrote:

> Check out this article
> http://www.talbotchamber.org/announcements/job_boom.pdf from Business 2.0
> (the HTML version requires a subscription).   If you can hang on a couple
> of years, there's going to be a demand in IT "that will make it feel like
> 1999 all over", because of increased demand coupled with the baby boomers
> retiring.

Don't be so keen on the whole 'baby boomers retiring' logic.  I was in the 
field of Botany for undergraduate and graduate school (MS).  For years, the 
'experts' kept recommending that students get PhDs to fill the positions left 
from 'retiring baby boomers' in all science fields.  What really happened is 
that positions vacated retired professor were taken by more and more 
administrative positions.  I don't have a handy reference, but the growth in 
the number of professors over the past 30 years is miniscule compared to the 
growth in administrative positions (not secretaries, but Deans, Associate 
Deans, etc).  The net result is a total glut of PhDs in Biology, where there 
are 100s of applicants for a single tenured professorship.

Similarly, IT jobs are even more in jeopardy simply due to automation.  More 
of our work will be automated over the next few decades until there are few 
IT professionals.  Think of Ma Bell 60 years ago with human operators.  Where 
are they now?  Gone the way of automation - replaced by computer switches.

The biggest expense for all companies is the salaries of its employees.  
Whenever they can, a smart business (defined by one that wants to stay out of 
bankruptcy) will automate --- even if the initial costs hardware and software 
costs are staggering.  So, over time, more and more jobs are automated.

If you're interested in reading some interesting ideas (I don't agree with 
many of them) on automation:

 + http://roboticnation.blogspot.com/

Later,
Jeff