Cant agree with this based upon what I am seeing in Silicon Valley here. The trend is towards outsourcing and much of that outsourcing will end up in China and India. Software prototypes might be developed here but then the down and dirty coding will be done in Bangalore.
As far as IT is concerned, we have seen a marked increase in outsourcing of entire departments and, instead of in-house development, companies are turning to "canned" solutions. I recently spoke with a programmer from Land O Lakes (the butter people) and he lamented that he had lost his programming skills..his days were spent configuring and interfacing various software components that his company had bought elsewhere. His plight is not an exception.
The burgeoning field of supply chain management will also reduce jobs (and create profits for these companies). Silicon Valley, more and more, will just become a managerial command center with spokes that reach out across the world. If this sounds like a second wave of de-industrializaion (I call it de-informatization) then you got the picture.
If and when we come out of this current crisis, the technology sector is going to be dramatically changed, and a LOT of people are no longer going to have jobs within the technology sector. If you're a business analyst or logistics specialists you might come out ok. If you're an American engineer or programmer, you might want to update that resume.
I would love to be wrong about all of the above, SO anybody who wants to take a swipe at my reasoning, please do so. But I am afraid though that, at least this time, I am right.
Thomas
===== <<Be like me! The Primal Mother, eternally creative, eternally impelling into life,
eternally drawing satisfaction from the ceaseless flux of phenomena.>>
-Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy"
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