Positive Aspects of Technology Jobs

Posted by yourtechguy on Mar 28, 2011 in Articles | 0 comments

Tech­nol­ogy makes it pos­si­ble for many peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties to suc­ceed in employ­ment and func­tion in today’s soci­ety. There are numer­ous tech­nolo­gies that help peo­ple use com­put­ers. Key­boards that have large let­ter­ing and bright keys help the visu­ally impaired. A key­less key­board allows users to type by slid­ing domes around to cre­ate let­ters and num­bers. A head­band and arm­band device lets a com­puter user con­trol the cur­sor with motion and eye blinks to acti­vate but­ton clicks. Per­sons with phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions could “point and click” with­out lift­ing a fin­ger from the com­puter key­board. A hand­held device that uses GPS tech­nol­ogy helps a per­son with cog­ni­tive dis­abil­i­ties catch a bus. It sends a prompt to get ready when the bus is approach­ing and another when the bus is at the stop.

Tech­nol­ogy has been used to pro­mote greater eco­nomic equity, more free­dom of choice, changes in the pat­tern of work, but in some cases it has caused the elim­i­na­tion of entire clas­si­fi­ca­tions of employ­ment. Type­set­ting first began around the 1400’s, but in the late 1980’s the trend was mov­ing toward desk­top pub­lish­ing. As com­puter and soft­ware tech­nol­ogy grew, the move to com­plete desk­top pub­lish­ing achieved in the 1990’s. Thou­sands of peo­ple were dis­placed by this type of tech­nol­ogy. Tele­phone oper­a­tors were once the job to have; now that job has been replaced by voice recog­ni­tion tech­nol­ogy. Sec­re­tar­ial dic­ta­tion has also been replaced by voice recog­ni­tion soft­ware. Drafts­men have made the switch to com­puter aided design sys­tems, speed­ing up the process dra­mat­i­cally. Another area that is slowly being phased out is in the retail indus­try. Stores are now exper­i­ment­ing with self-checkout sys­tems. This has reduced the num­ber of work­ers by about 3 to 1. Now, one cashier can over­see 4 self-check out sys­tems instead of hav­ing 4 sep­a­rate cashiers for four sep­a­rate lines. Auto­matic Teller Machines pro­vide a con­tin­ual, con­ve­nient bank­ing ser­vice. No busi­ness could sup­ply such a ben­e­fit at such a low cost. Pay at the pump gas sta­tions allow you to pay with­out hav­ing to go inside the store. Online shop­ping is becom­ing more and more com­mon­place. With such busy sched­ules, peo­ple are look­ing for more and more ways to save time. Over the next five years online shop­ping is expected to reach 132 mil­lion house­holds. The over­all impact to the retail mar­ket will be fewer cashiers, stock­ers, and clerks man­ning retail stores.

Where is Tech­nol­ogy Lead­ing Us?

With the pop­u­lar­ity of the Inter­net, the exis­tence of pub­lic libraries is being threat­ened. It is becom­ing harder for libraries to com­pete with the inter­net. Libraries have installed com­put­ers and begun to offer a wide range of audio-visual media. They have found them­selves increas­ingly unable to match the ser­vice pro­vided by home com­put­ers and the Internet.

Schools and col­leges now offer online classes with­out the need for a class­room. Com­plete degrees may be acquired. This tech­nol­ogy has opened up a whole new world for peo­ple try­ing to get an edu­ca­tion. It allows peo­ple to login to class and study any­where they may have an inter­net con­nec­tion. This is espe­cially advan­ta­geous to the disabled.

Elec­tronic Paper Dis­plays are one of the next big rev­o­lu­tion­ary prod­ucts. Elec­tronic Paper is flex­i­ble, thin, will have the feel of real paper and will be able to have the text changed on the dis­play. This prod­uct will be able to replace a lot of printed media. The appli­ca­tions are end­less. This tech­nol­ogy will be able to do things that printed media could not accom­plish. News­pa­pers would not have to be deliv­ered phys­i­cally any­more. One could reload or have the day’s news beamed to the reader.

All jobs, no mat­ter how spe­cial­ized, will expe­ri­ence ups and downs of the mar­ket place. The key to sur­viv­ing will be the best at what you do. Peo­ple who are experts in their fields have a bet­ter time sur­viv­ing the lows than the aver­age person.

What Can we do?

Future job appli­cants will need to be in highly skilled jobs to avoid being made redun­dant, such as being a writer, designer, musi­cian, inven­tor or an actor. Trades will also still be needed. Car­pen­ters, physi­cians, nurses are among the many trade or skill level jobs that will still be required. Some of the jobs that will do well in the future will be in the tech­nol­ogy field. There will be a strong demand for sys­tems ana­lysts, web spe­cial­ist, data base engi­neers and net­work secu­rity spe­cial­ist. Over­time, I believe that tech­ni­cal jobs and trade jobs will even itself out.

There will be a need for jobs that we can not even imag­ine now. The jobs mar­ket will con­tinue to be dri­ven by the bot­tom line, thus push­ing tech­nol­ogy to the lim­its. No mat­ter what you think of tech­nol­ogy, it is here to stay. Jobs, edu­ca­tion, med­i­cine and every other are of our lives will con­tinue to be affected by tech­nol­ogy. The advances yet to come can not be imag­ined. Are we, as a peo­ple, in dan­ger of becom­ing so wrapped up in tech­nol­ogy that we for­get who we are? Only time can answer that ques­tion. I myself am look­ing for­ward to all of the advances in the world.