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Joe Stocks

10/13/03 11:18 PM

#160482 RE: greg s #160478

The coming job boom? Not from major growth in industry but actually from less workers to fill all the jobs neccessary to service the expanding needs of millions of new retirees. This is the job boom we don't need nor want. A shortage of labor causing higher wages when our expanding surge of seniors can least afford it - the years they move into fixed income.

Look how great the 80's and 90's were. We had a population of boomers numbering 80 million. 80 million to buy and acguire, and to care and to bury, the generation of 45 million that gave them life. Now, looking into the future, that same 80 million is being followed by an equal 80 million. A one to one ratio that is bound to change a standard of living that we have enjoyed in the past.

The coming job boom. The baby boomers have just went through it's peak productive years. Now those boomers start to move into the years that they become net consumers and there will be a real shortage of workers to fullfill those needs. This is a job boom I'm not looking for- a job boom caused by contraction and not expansion.
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Zeev Hed

10/13/03 11:52 PM

#160488 RE: greg s #160478

An interesting article, but it does not take into account a major trend, first manufacturing in the united states is in decline, thus the number of workers required to create a dollar of GDP is declining as well, declining faster than the expected decline in the workforce. You see that in two major numbers, Manufacturing is now about half of GDP than it was let say in the 1970 (from memory, about 11% of GDP now vs about 20% in the early 70'.) The productivity increase factor (one cause for the temporary deflation or mini deflation we have) is also greater than the shortage expected from demographic shifts. What will happens by hook ot by crook is that the educational level of the new generation of workers will increase slowly, to match the requirement of a more educated work force. Another trend that we are going to see will be the contraction of the hierarchy in corporations (hierarchy that wasted "white collar" workers), and thus the same dollar of GDP will require less "white collar" workers. Blue collar workers (skilled or less skilled) "head count" will also decline due to the secular trend of decreasing manufacturing here and switching of that to overseas market. Some people view this with alarm, and all I can say is look at historical trends in agriculture over the first half of the last century, that is what is happening in manufacturing in the second half of the last century (and the beginning of this century), and there is nothing wrong with that either. Someone posted this morning an interesting trend in machine tools, it looks alarming, but it is only a reflection of an economy shifting from "Brawn power" to "Brain power".

What is problematic is only the transition (a period as we are now in), but that will "pass" as well.

I think I have preached this sermon often enough on this thread. (g).
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doling2000

10/14/03 12:06 AM

#160490 RE: greg s #160478

Hi

I am a regular lurker on Zeev's Turnips but I decided to register just to thank you for posting that very thought provoking article here. I have passed it on to many!!!

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TJ Parker

10/14/03 2:12 AM

#160497 RE: greg s #160478

for some contrast:

Intel's Grove: US software, services face meltdown
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 11/10/2003 at 00:03 GMT

Acknowledging that it was National Depression Day, Intel co-founder Andy Grove warned that US software and services would go the same way of the US steel industry. "It would be a miracle if it didn't happen in the software and services industry,'' he said.

Grove attributed the crisis to higher labor costs in the US, and the diminishing number of people with "advanced qualifications". US steel manufacturers saw their share fall from 50 per cent to 10 per cent. He confessed to being a "skunk at the garden party" before his Washington DC audience.

His honesty is commendable, and Grove has done the industry a service if he can alert complacent politicans. But Grove all but admitted that he was part of the problem. Intel's CEO Craig Barrett said recently that 1,000 new jobs created by Intel since the crash were offshore, in India and China. Grove said CEOs faced a conflict between generating profits for shareholders and "doing the right thing for the country". He advocated higher R&D funding at universities, better collaboration between companies and "raising the hurdle for intellectual property litigation".

Short of drastic cuts in salaries for software and services engineers in the West, it's hard to see what will even the balance. Software CEO Brad Wardell of Stardock Systems says IT staff simply expect too much.

"The majority of IT people still want to be paid at dot.com wages. The job simply isn't worth that much," he told us. "Let's say I had to pay $120,000 a year for one American IT guy: we wouldn't hire as many artists and designers. The IT guys is costing two other American jobs."

"Eventually wages will come back down to more competitive levels," he predicted. "There are still cultural issues and we'll need a local services and software. I can't see India sucking away the entire IT department." ®

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/33339.html