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Even when a given job carries the same title, often you cannot hold that job while continuing to do things the way they were done 20 years ago -- or, in the case of Icomputers, 5 years ago.

Let me get in one comment before the usual fists start flying...

I think the real new thing here is the increasing velocity of job dislocation as technology marches on.

So the effect is a compression of what used to happen over 100 years into 5 years' time.

Which means that a generation ago, you held one job for 40 years -- not because the process we are observing now was not happening then, but because it was happening at a glacial pace. So most people wouldn't be touched by it in their working life.

It's not that anything new is happening in the American economy. It's just happening much quicker, so we feel it now. And the velocity will only increase.

It's not that anything new is happening in the American economy. It's just happening much quicker, so we feel it now. And the velocity will only increase.

I saw this happen in my first career. The phototypesetting industry gave way to the PC/Mac revolution, and the one-man business I had nurtured with such care went bust almost literally overnight. I was able to jockey the few computer skills I had as a typesetter into a position in the IT business (networking). A generation before, hot-metal typesetters had seen their careers lost to the cold type process. Before that, hand-set type lost out to hot metal. It's a never-ending process, and there's little sense in railing about the injustices of life.