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Knowledge Worker and Skilled Worker

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Submitted By soyjuice
Words 775
Pages 4
Occupations that are considered skilled workers are carpenter, electrician, plumber, doctors, nurses, customer service representatives, software developer, police officer, military personnel (whether it is war-fighting function or indirectly supporting war-fighting function), truck drivers etc. The list goes on and on.
Manpower Group conducts a talent shortage survey every year (Reference 1). These are jobs/positions that are hardest to fill. I have subjectively separated the skilled worker jobs and knowledge worker jobs and tallied the numbers up. Here is a summary of the number of skilled workers and number of knowledge workers from the ten hardest jobs to fill, year 2006 to 2013.
2006:
Skilled Worker: 7
Knowledge Worker: 3
2007:
Skilled Worker: 8
Knowledge Worker: 2
2008:
Skilled Worker: 7
Knowledge Worker: 3
2009:
Skilled Worker: 8
Knowledge Worker: 2
2010:
Skilled Worker: 8
Knowledge Worker: 2
2011:
Skilled Worker: 6
Knowledge Worker: 4
2012:
Skilled Worker: 7
Knowledge Worker: 3
2013:
Skilled Worker: 6
Knowledge Worker: 4
There seems to be a trend of decrease in the difficulty of filling skilled worker jobs. As you can see from the lists, skilled worker shortage still represents the majority of the top 10 lists. I think with the information technology dominating our everyday lives, we are often left with the impression that knowledge workers will eventually replace skilled workers.
However, I believe skilled workers play vital roles in our society and economy that cannot be replaced in anytime soon. Whether it is in the form of goods or service, trading requires human manual forces involved. For example, rather than going to a brick and mortar store, many of us choose to shop online. On the surface, online shopping eliminates skilled worker requirements (such as sales representatives, cashiers). However, this is

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