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Like it or not we are in a global economy, one that is raising all boats, not just ours. Career paths come and go at a more rapid pace. A century or so ago, electric lights were putting candle makers out of business and motor cars devastated the horse & buggy industry. Many more examples can be made over the years. Payphones have given way to mobile devices. Internet video streaming will soon put cable companies out of business. Traditional brick & mortar retail is currently dying a prolonged and painful death as Sears and Radio Shack employees are finding out, among others.

Understandably people in the workforce are frightened. But they need to be constantly updating their skill sets and be ready to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

The good news is that despite the doomsday predictions, the standard of living continues to rise for all. Even the so-called poor in 1st World countries (of which the United States is only one) are seeing their lot improved.

True, a lot of them are out of work but they are not starving. Instead, they are relaxing at home and queuing up the next binge-watching session on Netflix and deciding what pizza joint they are going to go to tonight. Actually their ability to do that is part of the reason we have such unemployment. For the first time in our civilization's history, large numbers of people are sitting idle and having all their basic needs met by the welfare state.

People don't like hearing that but it's true. A quick cure for unemployment would be to eliminate welfare tomorrow for all except those truly disabled. All those "HELP WANTED" signs will start disappearing as people will start taking the jobs they feel today they are too good for.

Getting back to the IT workers. Maybe 20 years ago you could get a high paying job in IT, helping end users navigate a spreadsheet or making sure their mouse is plugged in properly, etc. Or at a higher level, you could be running the network for a small company, backing up and restoring data, partitioning drives, adding storage, writing script files to deploy OS and application updates, etc.

But all that stuff is pretty much automated these days and it is cheaper for companies to outsource the "help desk" function overseas - even with the broken English and hard to understand accents.

That said, it's not exactly a "dream job" to strap on a headset and walk a bunch of cranky end users through performing an anti-virus update or remoting in to update a driver, etc. Let the overseas people do it and let's move on to more challenging types of work. Like building apps for the new mobile OS platform or something.

Let the overseas people do it and let's move on to more challenging types of work. Like building apps for the new mobile OS platform or something.

"Outsource Your App Development Effectively With These 5 Tips"

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/233786

There is no "or something". Everything that's not onsite, in-person can be outsourced in IT. That brings us down to equipment installer, direct outside sales.

The good news is that despite the doomsday predictions, the standard of living continues to rise for all.

The problem is that this just isn't so -- middle-class wages in the US have been stagnant for decades.

People don't like hearing that but it's ...
... absolute hogwash -- more anti-American, communist propaganda.

Low labor force participation rate continues to plague the economy