>[Most of the jobs that are safe would seem to be low-value-added
>occupations like car mechanic, restaurant worker, barber, etc. The
>jobs that earn -- or earned -- big bucks are in real peril. Here's
>the latest from mega-gloom-monger Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley on
>the death spiral of the Great American Job Machine:]
According to the widely cited Forrester estimates, 3.3 million U.S. jobs will be "offshored" over the next decade, in an economy with 130 million jobs now, that the BLS projects will add 22 million more by 2010 (though it's doing a pretty crummy job of it now). 3.3 million is a lot bigger than zero, but it's hardly the dominant force in the labor market that Roach portrays it. This explanation overlooks the fact that employers were severely burned by the bursting of the bubble, and are very reluctant to hire and invest. Or, looked at another way, the offshoring phenom is itself part of working through the post-bubble slump. Japanese employment didn't grow in the 90s either.
Doug