I purvey doom and gloom with the best of them. But I have limits.

About 8 Million [American] job seekers are vying for 3.5 million jobs ...

"This time the data suggests that millions couldn't get a job even if they moved, upgraded their skills or took a job they once thought beneath them, says Jeffrey Wenger, an economist with with the labor backed Economic Policy Institute."

Scary.  Just plain scary.  But given the empirical data I have, based on people all over the country that talk to me online, all well skilled, talented people, I'd believe it. [FuzzyBlog]

Three things.

1. When you are out of work, the unemployment rate is 100%.
    
2. Economic figures are history. They don't predict the future and barely describe the present. You can't change history, but each of us write a new one every day.
    
3. The BLS JOLTS report is a snapshot of a race in motion. New businesses are being born. New jobs are being planned and created. Technologies are creating new challenges and opportunities. Even hardships and dire times are teaching old lessons and new skills, fuel for the economic engine. The JOLTS reports don't capture Free Agent Nation: temporary workers, proprietors and partners of unincorporated businesses, employees on strike or on leave, or unpaid family workers.

Brett Morgan blames the IT slowdown on there being nothing left to automate. Upgrading or switching isn't worth the cost or effort. And then he goes insane...

So what happens next? Well, have a look at what happened when a large number of farmers wound up out of work due to farm automation. The Industrial Revolution.

To make this happen requires that the group organise itself. I suspect that blogs will make this happen, albeit a small peice at a time. So, if you are unemployed, hook up with motivated people and hack on stuff you enjoy building. And we will begin the next revolution.

For real this time.

That's the attitude!

What might this revolution look like?

John Sculley in the March 2002 Darwin:

"We're about to experience the biggest power shift since Henry Ford introduced mass production 100 years ago. Producers used to make all the important decisions: What will the product look like? What are its features, its benefits? What will its channels be? Now it's a new world where customers are in control of everything. They define the brands; they demand the best quality, the best service, the cheapest price. They can customize the product exactly the way they want it. And they want it right away. How does a company make money when customers have so much control over so many things?

Companies will adapt by using the Internet. It's so much more powerful a tool than anyone from the dotcom revolution envisioned. The dotcom era is turning out to be more like what CB radios were in the 1970s. In reality, the cell phone—not the CB radio—changed all of our lives. The CB radio whet our appetites, but it wasn't it. Likewise, the dotcom revolution is all about the reinvention of work in a connected economy where business process productivity over networks is going to be many times bigger than the kind of productivity we saw with desktop PCs."

Agricultural era to Industrial revolution? CB to Cellular?

Be eager not anxious.

CW360°:  A cynic's view of our digital future.

As a nation - and I don't just mean Greater London - will we suddenly become a knowledge economy where the trains run on time? When the efficiencies promised by Oracle, or Microsoft, or Sun finally transform the public sector, where will all the people go and where will all the jobs be? In IT? Somehow I don't think so.

From where I sit, as cynical as you might expect, I see an IT sector that is thinning out dramatically and a manufacturing sector that's dying on its feet.

Somewhere in between lies the grand promise of a future place in the evolving knowledge economy and throwing money at huge public sector IT projects is supposed to jump-start the process.

But like the child in the fairytale of The King's New Clothes, I have an awkward question. Has anyone given any sensible thought to what happens if, like the Dome, the great plan swallows the money and the result is an expensive disappointment?

And what is a job in the Knowledge Economy anyway, and how well does it translate into Albanian?

Ouch.