The Worst Jobs For The 21st Century

Forbes:

What to avoid? The usual suspects. According to the projections by the U.S. government, manufacturing jobs are expected to decline by more than 5% by 2014 as production moves overseas. Same goes for textile workers, such as sewing machine operators, who will see a 36% drop in employment. Technology will kill off more office positions, such as file clerks. They'll see a 36% drop in their ranks by 2014. Digital cameras will zap the manual photo processing industry by about 30%. And that guy who comes around to read your electric meter? Expect to see a lot less of him, too.

But these are the obvious victims as the U.S. moves from a goods-producing economy to a services-producing economy. More interesting are the jobs that are likely to experience slower than average growth (average being about 13%). This is where the surprises are.

Like computer programmers. Despite all the advances--and expected job growth--in the computer industry, expect the number of programmers to increase by about 2% between 2004-2014. Why? Outsourcing. Americans who want a career in this field should find a specialization, like cybersecurity.

Another endangered species: journalists. Despite the proliferation of media outlets, newspapers, where the bulk of U.S. reporters work, will cut costs and jobs as the Internet replaces print. While current events will always need to be covered (we hope), the number of reporting positions is expected to grow by just 5% in the coming decade, the Labor Department says. Most jobs will be in small (read: low-paying) markets....

Lots more here plus a listing and stats on 10 endangered areas. Think of LendingTree's model, now apply it to any number of services that are intermediary based, relying on professional knowledge of where to look for info. For lots of guilds--insurance, accounting, law, etc--that's 80-90% of their activity: the mundane and routinized interspersed with moments of nuance or wise cognition, AKA wisdom. Now, what are our schools teaching? What is our economic and political decision-making centered on? Yes, riding maturing sectors and sensibilities based around subtractive formulae off of a cliff, into the ground, pick your tired analogy.

Maybe here's the simple rule: if silicon and inorganic can do it faster, better, it's gonna commoditize. If it requires empathy, emotional skill, or intuitive and creative judgment and execution (non-linear, adaptive, resourceful), go long.