So what are the new new NEW jobs of the 21st century?

Remember when education in technology was supposed to be the key to a bright career future in America? Not anymore:

In an eyebrow-raising forecast, Gartner Inc. researchers said they believe that as many as 50 percent of the IT operational jobs in the U.S. could disappear over the next two decades because of improvements in data center technologies.



Donna Scott, a Gartner analyst, said IT workers face a situation similar to that in the manufacturing field, which has lost jobs over the past several decades as automation has improved. Similarly, standardization of IT infrastructure, applications and processes will lead to productivity improvements and a major shift in skill needs, she said.



"There will be more room to automate, and that means there will be reduced labor cost," said Scott. "This is a long-term change."



Gartner calls this change "real-time infrastructure," which involves service-oriented architectures, the elimination of communications barriers and dynamic alignment of IT with business priorities. Technologies enabling the shift have less need for human intervention because they are more intelligent and can automatically provision services and self-heal.



IT operations, which encompass areas such as systems administration, incident response and change management, today account for about 55 percent of an IT department's labor cost, said Scott, who spoke at the Stamford, Conn.-based research firm's annual data center conference here in Las Vegas. But as companies improve automation, IT operations become "more like a factory," said Scott. Demand will grow for employees who have IT architecture skills as well as those with business and customer-liaison knowledge. Project management, for instance, will rise in terms of the percentage of IT labor costs, she said.

Not so long ago, system administration was regarded as a safeguard against outsourcing. Everyone knew that the programming jobs were being shipped overseas, but if you were a hands-on guy -- network administration, help desk, that sort of thing -- you were safe. So much for that delusion.



So where are the high-paying jobs of the 21st century going to come from? Alternative energy research? No, the Bush Administration wants nothing to do with that, it might interfere with their oil money. Stem cell research? No, that kills blastocysts. Geology? No, that might produce evidence that the Biblical account of creation can't possibly be true. AIDS research? No, after all, we want those sinners and fornicators to die, right?



No, folks, we are headed down the road to third world-dom, where global corporations will pit populations of workers in various countries against each other in an ever-increasing race to the bottom.



I enjoyed my stay in the middle class. I hope you did too.