Sarah Burns
Professor Horacek
English 1001
26 October 2014
America’s Future Workforce Thomas L. Friedman’s selection entitled “The Untouchables”, from his 2005 best seller, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, advises that every young American worker should begin to assume that they are competing against every young Chinese, Indian, and Brazilian for a job. For years, people worked where their parents worked, or wherever major corporations, government bureaucracies, or unions were available to them. Factors such as the advancement in technology, the idea of globalization becoming more relevant, today’s aging workforce, and postsecondary education becoming mandatory for any type of sustainable job will shape our country’s future workforce. Fifty years ago, no one could predict the technology we have today. Now, due to the speed of our technological change, we can foresee machines continuing to substitute human labor. This supports the idea that America’s future workforce will rely more on education than manual skill. The best jobs will be found at the hands of America’s brains. If not, the jobs will seek others who can fulfill the tasks. With that said, these jobs will replace the employees in charge of making these “sophisticated products” with machines that can do the same thing. This eliminates the manufacturing jobs, and replaces them with the development and marketing of such products(Judy and D’Amico 313). Adding to what the authors of “Work and Workers of the Twenty-First Century” said, the author of “The Unknown” talks about how American workers can benefit from the advancing technology. Because these machines and workers in other countries can perform the job at a lower cost, the production cost is also lowered, and profits will rise(Economist 322). These new jobs will result in safer and better paid workers. Young