Where are the jobs, really?

Answers vary. Some responses suggest specific vocations, others specify geographic areas, and still others predict there will be fewer full-time jobs except those requiring endurance rather than talent or skill.

What does Thomas Friedman think?

From The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty First Century: “Those who are waiting for this recession to end so someone can again hand them work could have a long wait.

“Those who have the ability to imagine new services and new opportunities and new ways to recruit work…are the new Untouchables. Those with the imagination to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine technologies will thrive…Our schools have a doubly hard task, not just improving reading, writing and arithmetic but entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity. We’re not going back to the good old days without fixing our schools as well as our banks.”

I agree with Friedman except that I don’t think we can ever go back to the “good old days.” As for those adults who are now unemployed or under-employed, their schools and colleges prepared many (most?) of them for jobs that no longer exist rather than for the opportunities to which Friedman refers.