Reich uses the term of "symbolic analysts" to describe what he feels one of the three
main job classifications of the future will be. The symbolic analysts will be someone
who is a problem identifier, a problem solver, or an innovator who can visualize new uses
of existing technologies. This class of workers includes scientists, engineers, and
other scientific or technical specialties as well as marketers, investors, some types of
lawyers, developers and a wide variety of consultants.
The symbolic analysts will have a high level of education, both in the classroom and on
the job experience.
Reich believes that this new, actually redefined, class of workers will be the best bet
for job growth and success into the next century. Opportunities for job growth will
remain rather high. This is a result of two factors, a slowing growth in population and
the future retirement of the baby boomer generation (Reich, 203). It is not the number
of jobs in the future that is the problem, its the quality of those jobs. On the whole,
Reich identifies two trends in job quality. The number of mundane, manufacturing jobs
will decrease as well as the number of in-person service jobs e.g. bank tellers, but
growth in the number of symbolic analytical positions.
The loss of repetitive manufacturing is primarily a cost saving plan of American
corporations. Corporations seeking to lower their costs of labor move their large,
low-skilled manufacturing to points all over the globe in attempt to find the lowest
wages. Replacement of some in-person services is attributed to technological change.
Examples of this cutting of numbers can be seen in the blossoming of automated teller
machines, unmanned self service gas stations, and home shopping capabilities.
The symbolic analyst, however, contains a commodity that is both valuable and
irreplaceable. This is the human thinking and problem solving abilities that is becoming
ever more important in international business. Specialized groups of problem identifiers
and solvers will sprout all over the globe, selling their services to a wide variety of
customers. This growth might not seem beneficial for America in the traditional sense,
as analysts will work for foreign companies just as easily as American ones, but the
intangible gains of knowledge and experience stay within our country. People cannot be
shipped and marketed as easily as a new VCR.
The interesting point of Reichs theory for the future is that it offers no easily
visible solutions of raising the standard of living for those who reside in the United
States. In fact, I believe his symbolic analyst will only enlarge the growing income
inequality between the rich and poor. Unless you are benefited by a high education and
superior thinking abilities, your potential to earn good money in the future is dark
indeed. With fewer low skill jobs around, those who are not prepared will be scrapping
to find enough work to get by. Meanwhile, the symbolic analyst, with respect to their
abilities, could be raking in the dough.
Reich suggests that the United States is in the best position to capture the growth of
the symbolic analyst, allowing for the coming boom. The U.S. has the best university
system on the globe. While most elementary education is still backward, there are also
some schools which prepare young minds for their futures as analysts. The U.S. also has
an advantage over developing countries in that the analyst has been here already for some
time. There are specific zones of learning and innovation already present in our country
that will take years to develop elsewhere. This gives the United States a jump-start
heading into the next century.
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