More manual labor is accomplished through automation and foreign subcontractors. And many American laborers are still trying to catch up. A forecast as recent as 1989 called for women's earnings to be within a dime of men's. Instead, they make about 23 cents less per dollar. That gap has been narrowing lately because of a drop in men's pay.
Technology is a powerful driver of the work force.
And globalization works in the same direction. Technology guessing game Technology is unpredictable. In 1967, for instance, analysts painted now-familiar scenes of inexpensive telecommunications facilitating global commerce. But they also forecast a nationwide count of 220,000 computers by the year 2000, a far cry from the estimated 54 million in U.S. households, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. Even then, they didn't appreciate how rapidly technology was clicking along.