Finding tomorrow’s jobs

This story was originally covered by PRI’s Here and Now. For more, listen to the audio above.

When jobs start returning after the recent financial meltdown, the job market will look very different than it did in 2006. “Low-end manufacturing, for instance, is not coming back,” according to Bill Saporito told PRI’s Here and Now. Saporito, who wrote the article “Where the Jobs Are: Who’s Creating Them And Who Will Benefit” for Time Magazine, thinks many service jobs aren’t coming back either.

If people want jobs, Saporito says they’re going to have to learn about technology. “It’s one of those areas that will continue to grow, with some hiccups here and there,” he told Here and Now. “Technology companies rise and fall fairly quickly, but employment tends to grow across the industry.”

Technology doesn’t necessarily mean computers. Saporito points out that “GE has decided to invest a billion dollars in its appliance business, and they’re going to hire a lot of people there.” Most of those people hired, however, are going to need higher educations.

“You used to be able to walk out of high school and walk into a factory job,” Saporito says, “that just doesn’t happen anymore.”

There is a mismatch in the United States between the skills companies want and the skills workers have. “We need to focus on the higher end of everything — of manufacturing, of services — because we’re not going to own the lower end,” according to Saporito. If the United States hopes to remain competitive, he says, “we need to get more people through college.”

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