When you're logged onto an on-line service, plugging into a bulletin board, that's the information highway. Already, supermarket workers use laser scanners and computerized cash registers. Delivery people and service representatives at banks and telephone marketing operations use digital tracking systems. Physicians, social workers and other child-serving professionals increasingly make use of computerized records and the digital transfer of information. In the same way that the fax machine became ubiquitous in the 1990's, computer-mediated communications and computerized recordkeeping will become virtually universal over the next ten years.
Experts agree that more than half of new jobs require some form of technology literacy.
Today's high school graduate can expect to change jobs six to seven times in the course of a lifetime. 8 Investments in information technology hardware comprise more than half of business spending on equipment. In addition, information technology equipment and related services together represent the largest export from the U.S., currently twice as great as the previous leader, aircraft. Not Ready Many Americans are not ready to deal with the changes brought about by a global economy and an increasing demand for technologically-skilled workers. We have now, and for the better part of the next generation will continue to have, a workforce that is not sufficiently equipped for highly-skilled work.