Alan Blinder, now of Princeton, has a very interesting article about offshoring in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. He categorizes offshoring as the third Industrial Revolution and warns that the impact on the world economy will be just as great as that of the first two revolutions, which saw people first move from farming to factory, and then from manufacturing to service jobs. Offshoring is seeing the migration of jobs from rich countries to poorer countries. Where it will end is still to be determined.
Many of us assume that the best defense against our jobs being exported is an educated work force. But, Blinder clearly shows that is not necessarily the case. For example, you would not think that medical jobs could be exported. Well, for most medical jobs, that is true. But not for radiologists, as more and more x-rays are being read by radiologists in India. Looking at the question from a slightly different viewpoint, one sees that many jobs that do not require educational credentials, such as taxi driver, will never be exported, while a lot of our computer programming work is now being done overseas.
Our question then becomes what kind of education should our kids and grandkids be getting to make them more marketable as the twenty-first century progresses.
1 comment:
Better driving lessons, perhaps?
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